Final Rating: 3/5
Blu-ray Recommendation: Recommend
At times, football is “theatre with real consequences,” a modern-day incarnation of gladiatorial combat, or even a gift from God or the Devil himself. There are a lot of ideas in HIM, the football-horror film from director Justin Tipping. Centred around incoming quarterback Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers) and his mentor Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), the film presents a view of football as something transcending sports or entertainment. While not every metaphor in HIM completes the pass, the vision Tipping fits within his cult-of-the-quarterback themed psychological thriller is fascinating even when it fumbles.
After a head wound results in Cade not being drafted to a professional team, he’s contacted by his agent with a unique offer: train for one week with White, the star quarterback of the San Antonio Saviors, and if it goes well, the Saviors will sign him. For Cade, this is a dream come true. White, an eight-time Superbowl champion, is widely considered the Greatest Of All Time. Before his injury, Cade was a contender to be “the next GOAT,” and White’s mentorship could cement it.
White is a living legend, a man who has broken down doors and overcome multiple career-ending injuries to become the best quarterback alive even after a twenty-year career. His contract is slated to end, but he’s hungry to keep playing. White’s reputation precedes him, but Wayans plays him more like an older member of a frat than an elder statesman. In one of the film’s most disturbing sequences, a player starts going into shock immediately after suffering a concussion, and instead of helping him, White starts a chant celebrating Cade while soft music plays.
Wayans’s natural charisma shines through White. While White might come across as a crazy, evil character, more often he’s a team captain controlling the situation. Essentially a quarterback.
White’s main character conflict is his impending retirement. A retirement he hardly acknowledges, because he cannot imagine a life in which he isn’t the star quarterback. Wayans mines this conflict for White’s more introspective moments. Every time he talks about his past games or gives Cade advice on how to be a better teammate, White speaks as if recalling a cherished childhood memory about to expire. Each night, when he goes to his room to “watch some tape,” it’s said as if looking back on his life is all he has left.
As Cade, Withers has less to work with but holds his own alongside Wayans. The younger athlete’s inexperience in the world of professional footballers makes him more of an audience surrogate, the weirdest events bewildering Cade as much as the viewers. That said, Cade acclimates to his environment quickly.
Early on, White tests Cade on passing, penalizing him for each fumble by launching a football right into the face of a crazed fan. Cade is initially shocked and appalled, but under pressure, simply endeavours not to fumble. On more than one occasion, the audience is given time to sit with White’s football-themed torture complex, while Cade is forced to adapt. Cade’s character journey is one of finding self-assurance; not so much of overcoming his situation as taking charge of it.
During their conversations, White mentions the mantra “God, Family, Football.” He brings this up to turn it around: “Football, Family, God.” It’s no novel observation that football is revered religiously among its fans, and HIM makes that explicit. The team Cade and White belong to is called the Saviors; fans are regularly positioned across from the quarterbacks as if kneeling in prayer; at one point, cinematographer Kira Kelley even recreates “The Last Supper” with Cade at the centre of the table.
The crux of HIM’s religious undertones is the concept of the GOAT. Rather than a descriptor of a single player somewhere in time, the title takes on a life of its own in the film as something more or less objective. White is the GOAT. By the end, Cade “becoming the GOAT” isn’t framed as him surpassing White in ability and amazing a more accomplished legacy, but rather as the next logical step after White’s eventual retirement or death.
What else could one describe as a GOAT? Satan.
As HIM reveals more of what makes its athletes tick, Tipping incorporates increasing amounts of satanic imagery. From pentagrams and old occult symbols as part of summoning circles, to fans and colleagues literally dressed as goats or satyrs. It’s all but literally stated that to become the GOAT takes a deal with the devil.
What’s missing from the messianic and satanic themes are details tying the two together. Is the quarterback a Christlike figure saving not only his team, but in many ways the world? Or is the quarterback the man who communed with a demon to become the greatest to ever do it? Perhaps the quarterback is a fusion of both.
The Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray includes a collection of deleted and alternate scenes, behind the scenes featurettes, and a feature commentary. The deleted scenes mostly lean into the film’s more surreal aspects, more heavily framing Cam’s journey as a descent into madness than an ascent to greatness.
The featurettes feature interviews with most of the actors, several producers including Jordan Peele, and director Tipping, largely going over the appeal of a film that merges the worlds of sports and the occult. What’s clear when hearing the filmmakers talk about this film is that HIM is remarkably ambitious and thematically rich. It’s those things that drew everyone to the project. It’s an ambition the filmmakers come close to nailing, but the finished film never feels as deep as it sets out to be.
There’s enough happening in HIM to create a rich and intriguing world. A world so close to ours but with something uncanny and terrifying at the heart of America’s most popular football league. HIM isn’t perfect, but it certainly gets to the red zone.
Thank you to Universal Pictures and The TARO Group for the screener.
