HIM
HIM is a new film out by producer Jordan Peele and director Justin Tipping. The film attempts to share with the audience the pressures of being a football star and all that comes with that. Unfortunately this film horribly misses the mark and ends up as a bloody mess of a film.
The two main characters are played by Marlon Wayans, the aging football star, and Tyriq Withers, the young up and coming star. They never feel in sync at all throughout the entire film and it’s actually awkward to watch them together in many scenes. The idea of the film is to show how hard it is for Wayans’ character to remain relevant and all that Withers’ character must go through to become relevant. Sadly the film takes a turn completely away from football and attempts to bring in some sort of cult element. It attempts to imply the rich owners and agents have a secret cult where they kill people who get in their way to make sure the football star emerges.
There are so many plot holes and questions about why things happen in the film. It all feels horribly disjointed at the end. The film ends up trying to take an interesting topic and turn it into a bizarre horror film that even the characters don’t seem to want to be a part of at times. From a deranged fan that inexplicably appears out of nowhere to a medial trainer who ends up being beheaded for no reason at all, there is no direction to this film. There is no explanation of why most of the things are happening.
Perhaps the most confusing scene is one of the training scenes where, for seemingly no reason at all, players are being punished physically for the young quarterback not performing his drills correctly. There is no explanation of who these other players are or why they are happy to be punished severely.
The one saving grace is that the film is incredible short at only an hour and thirty six minutes. With that being said, had they added another 10-15 minutes of plot perhaps the story would have come together a bit more. This film feels like a weak attempt at combining two things the American public loves, football and horror films. Sadly, it doesn’t hit on either of these two elements and the audience is left wondering why they didn’t stay home and watch Weapons and Thursday Night Football instead.
Overall 3 out of 10.
