Him (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

PopEntertainment
Sep 17
3 min read

Updated: Sep 21

HIM (2025)

Starring Marlon Wayans, Tyriq Withers, Julia Fox, Tim Heidecker, Jim Jefferies, Naomi Grossman, GiGi Erneta, Norman Towns, Maurice Greene, Guapdad 4000, Tierra Whack, Naomi Grossman, Gabriela Alicia Ortega, Alana Nguyen, Don Benjamin, Chase Garland, Kiara Gomez Glad Bak, Indira G. Wilson, Sean Dillingham, Richard Lippert and Jackie Suerth.

Screenplay by Skip Bronkie & Zack Akers and Justin Tipping.

Directed by Justin Tipping.

Distributed by Universal Pictures. 96 minutes. Rated R.

Football is arguably one of the most violent team sports – if not the most violent – and yet real-life football has nothing on Him as far as savagery goes.

Him, which is supposed to be a horror film about football, doesn’t actually have much football in it. In fact, there is not a single game played, not a single first down, not a single crowd cheering things on. All there is in Him is a lot of practice. And we all know what Allen Iverson had to say about practice. (Yes, I know, that is a different sport.)

Of course, this isn’t just normal practice; lots of quick sets and push pulls and sled drills. These practices are much more violent, much more surreal, and… dare I say… much more supernatural than the average NFL drills. People getting balls thrown full speed into their faces. Bones are broken and blood is spurting everywhere. Even the fans are homicidal. Soon bodies are piling up.

It is weird how films sometimes hit states of extremities. For example, just the other day I saw A Big Bold Beautiful Journey and even though it was definitely an imperfect film, I have to admit I kind of loved it. Two days later I saw Him, and while I can acknowledge the film had a lot of impressive aspects, I cannot stress enough how much I hated sitting through it.

It’s not because the films are so different – although they are – it’s just because even though both had extreme concepts, one of them was able to harness its odder impulses, while the other one just goes hog wild, becoming more and more absurd as it goes along.

Which is kind of a shame, because, if nothing else, Marlon Wayans does an incredible job with his very difficult role. (Wayans is BY FAR the best aspect of Him.) He plays Isaiah White, the eight-time champion quarterback of the San Antonio Saviors. (Subtle team name… like anything at all in this damned film is at all subtle.) White knows that his time at the top of the game is fleeting, and he must become mentor to the guy who will probably take his job, a young stud named Cam Cade (Tyriq Withers).

Cam was raised on two things. His football-obsessed late father was a huge fan of Isaiah’s so Cam was brought up to believe that being the GOAT (greatest of all time) is the most important thing in life – and that it was worth any sacrifice.

So after Cam gets a concussion after being attacked by an obsessed fan, he is invited to a strange, horrific training camp at a distant compound. He quickly learns that practicing for pro football is about physical and mental torture. He starts having odd and overly-symbolic hallucinations about violence and dark arts and pig men and who knows what else.

Of course, there is something wrong with The Saviors, even beyond the team’s name and the overbearing religious and philosophical imagery bombarding the screen.

In the immortal words of the Church Lady, could it be… Satan???!!!

Oh, please.

Even before this ridiculous and overly-predictable plot twist, Him – despite its stylish visuals – made no fucking sense.

The film is constantly going on about everyone wanting to be the GOAT– and yet it never explains why. It just assumes fans will fill that empty space with basic fandom assumptions, however nothing in Him makes the idea of being the GOAT look even the tiniest bit tempting. If this is what you have to do to be the best, most people would be happy to settle for being a journeyman, or even not playing at all.

However, as noted before, Wayans is the only thing that makes all of this at all bearable. Wayans goes way over the top, showing the heights and depths of his character, the good and evil of a man who has been bowed to – figuratively and literally – for nearly two decades. Wayans totally outshines his handsome-but-dull co-star.

In the end, though, even Wayans can’t make this film worth watching.

Jay S. Jacobs