Him

In the cutthroat arena of professional football dreams, rising star Tyriq Withers pours every ounce of sweat into becoming the next big thing, only to find his shot at glory hijacked by a shadowy mentor played by Marlon Wayans, whose twisted coaching blur the line between tough love and outright demonic possession—leaving the kid’s body and soul on the line in a game where the real score settles in blood, not points.

Him Review

Him is demonic noise.

                   

Director Justin Tipping be trippin’, because what he’s given us instead of a movie is the most disjointed and incoherent mess to hit the screens since Megalopolis. It’s what I imagine Malcolm McDowell’s character was forced to watch in A Clockwork Orange, football-themed horrors strobing their way directly into your brain with no story or rhythm.

In place of a cohesive narrative, its micron-thin plot is barely an excuse to bludgeon audiences with its overly simplistic metaphor (the generational trauma of pushing yourself and your loved ones for excellence in sports), and abuse them with hyper frenetic and often satanic imagery.

There is virtually no time (literally) given to character or plot development, and the only sense of cohesion is the feeling of being abused for daring to have purchased a ticket.

It’s impossible to critique the performances because there weren’t any. The main character walks around looking half asleep for 99% of the movie, while Wayans does whatever the hell (get it) it is that he is doing all movie long.

This is a movie best forgotten.

WOKE REPORT

Chief Bartle

• The history of the forward pass in American football is actually pretty interesting, as such things go. However, the movie condenses for convenience and then grafts racism onto it. The story goes that poor, innocent, and tiny Indian college students developed and perfected the forward pass to protect themselves from huge white men who were targeting them on the field, hurting and even killing them on the field just because they were different.
  • REALITY: The first official forward pass was developed in 1906 by St. Louis University coach Eddie Cochems and implemented that same year by their star player, Bradbury Robinson. Both white dudes.
  • REALITY: The forward pass was developed because players (regardless of their ethnic heritage) were being injured and killed on the field at such an alarming rate that President Teddy Roosevelt threatened to ban the sport altogether.
  • REALITY: Four years after Cochems, Pop Warner (yes, that one) and his American Indian team at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (including the legendary Jim Thorpe) did play a major role in the forward passes perfection and modern usage. Warner was famous for using creativity, speed, and trick plays to counteract bigger, stronger opponents, but not because his players were being targeted by racism, which is the narrative that the film puts forth.

    

As the Driven Snow

•  All of the non-thrall demons—or demonic figures—are white, except for Marlon Wayans’ character. He’s clearly black, yet he’s been corrupted by the all-white franchise owners and turned into their tool. To drive the irony further, his name is White—so even he is ‘white.
• Only one thrall is embarrassed and abused. He’s also the only white guy.
• All of the crazy fans are white.
• Marlon Wayans’s character says, “As a black quarterback, I had to be great just to be good.” The movie is set today, not 60 years ago.

Toxic Avenger

• Every inch of the film is drowning in a hyper-competitiveness/toxic masculinity metaphor.