Film Review: HIM
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Director Justin Tipping has mostly directed television, and finds himself returning to the big screen for the first time since 2016’s Kicks. With HIM, Tipping presents us a story that feels as if he’s making up for lost time, a movie doing it’s best to make a strong impression. Whether that impression is good is another thing entirely as HIM is so garish and loud and routinely deeply unserious despite the seriousness of the material, that it feels like an exercise on how much shock and awe filmmaking the audience can endure.
HIM chronicles the story of Cameron Cade, who after a brutal attack from a fan is invited by his idol Isaiah White to train at his isolated compound to try and get him right. Cam, a longtime fan of Isaiah and his team the Saviors, jumps at the chance to rehabilitate himself and his ability. The training quickly moves from intense to downright brutal as Cam is pushed to the limit physically and mentally, forcing him to reckon with just exactly who he is and if he has what it takes to be him.
When audiences leave HIM, they’ll certainly be discussing the visuals the most. Cinematographer Kira Kelly, so instrumental in making Insecure one of the best looking shows on television, brings her considerable talent for capturing images to this film. The movie plays with light and shadow in fun ways, and I just wish that the visuals felt more coherent with the narrative. It’s a fever dream, we see everything from x-ray vision to long static shots to POV, and the movie does falter under the weight of so much. The production design team is so clearly having a blast with this movie, even if it never quite amounts to much in the way of plot relevance or narrative coherence. Still, it’s nice to see a movie have a lot of style.
The script, notable for being an acclaimed Black List screenplay, never quite manages to find purchase. Going into a horror movie, audiences are well aware that some suspension of disbelief will likely be required. But what are we to make of a movie that feels divorced from the tenuous reality it establishes? Cam is a character we can easily go on a ride with, especially when played as competently as he is by Tyriq Withers, but the movie never quite lets him interrogate his surroundings in a way you’d expect for how weird everything gets. We watch him do drills that cause him and others to get grievously injured or be put in scenarios that would have sent a meeker man to a sanitarium. We’re meant to take away all of these larger convos about the bodily harm athletes are willing to put up with, the temptation that comes with fame, but the movie does not quite let Cam internalize them or show us how this is ultimately going to change his draft standing. Teams in the real world ignore all types of mess in order to draft players, and while Isaiah’s stamp of approval could mean a lot, so could the second opinion from a doctor.
What’s perhaps most disheartening is that our main character is so isolated from any tangible touchstones that could have really altered Cam’s path. He speaks so often about his father and in one crucial scene delivers the second best moment of the movie. But beyond that, Cam is never forced to make true decisions that would actively cost him something meaningful. The movie moves so quickly past anything that would allow us to really wrestle with how complicit fans are in the struggles athletes go through or what athletes themselves give up in order to be successful.
The only person to truly escape this film unscathed is Marlon Wayans, who is absolutely dynamite as Isaiah White, Cam’s idol. One of the most talented comedic actors of a generation, Marlon has occasionally acted in more dramatic projects, showcasing his range. Here he gets to be the swaggering idol, the demented mentor, and reality testing character, and aces every single test.
Despite the fact that I don’t feel it is successful in driving the narrative, I am incredibly impressed Tipping managed to convince Universal to let him make the movie this way. While it is certainly better to be wild and bad than be boring, HIM feels like a missed opportunity and a challenge for the very people the movie wants to reach.
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