Him – Film Review
by Brian Merriman

Directed by Justin Tipping
Screenplay by Zack Akers, Skip Bronkie, Justin Tipping
Starring: Marlon Wayans, Tyriq Withers, Julia Fox, Tim Heidecker,
Cinematography by Kira Kelly
Music by Bobby Krlic

Him is a sports horror film. Enough said. In a time when toxic masculinity is being presented as a political norm, the need to produce this film is beyond me. It’s a mix of Gladiator and Jackass. It is magnificently set, and the cinematography by Kira Kelly, including odd X-ray sequences, is well executed. There is money and fantasy galore. People, as is required by dominant machismo, are dispensable – another core mantra of toxicity.

The costume department seems underfunded as neither very fit male leads seems to own a shirt. For want of a better word, the screenplay by Zack Akers, Skip Bronkie, and Justin Tipping, who also directs, introduces us to Isiah White (a menacing and fit Marlon Wayans), the most successful quarterback ever. Apparently, though addicted to football, he has had ample time to delve into the darker side of life with devoted zombie-like acolytes. He is at the peak of his career, but retirement looms. His team needs a replacement. He gets to choose. Retirement is apparently devastating, and there is no hope of any life beyond it.

In walks innocent, beautiful Tyric Withers as Cameron Cade. He is young, fit and an all-round decent guy. He is well able to visually portray his naivete in his eyes and facial expression, but his submission to all kinds of endurances is odd. Clearly, he does think now and again.

Cameron’s motto is God, Family and Football, which of course needs White to re-prioritise these into Football, Family and God. The use of the crucifix in jewellery adds to all the product placement that any far-right toxic masculinity mantra needs. Apparently, successful quarterbacks when they retire just disappear instantly from the public view, and no one ever asks why or how. How fickle fans can be?

Cameron arrives for a seven-day initiation in a space-age compound, surrounded by zombie-like creatures who don’t want him. He submits himself to extreme hazing without question. His ice baths and sauna sequences, the drugs and debauchery, transition us from a space age set to the last days of the Roman Empire. In walks the Gladiator theme to try to wind up this Jackass on acid plot.

There is a lot of gushing blood, guts and gore, and our innocent young aspiring quarterback has a character arc that defies logic. In seven days, he goes from a nice guy who wants to provide for his close family, to a butcher whose martial arts and annihilation skills outmatch any demented warrior in the no way out Colosseum. Where these skills and values are formed in his character arc, it escapes anyone interested in a plot.

As is the case in Gladiator movies, when the last man is left standing, he is surrounded by blood, guts, amputated limbs and gore. In other words, he’s surrounded by a mess, and that is exactly what this well-shot, well-dressed ‘horror’ ends up as.