Director: Justin Tipping
Writer: Justin Tipping, Skip Bronkie, Zak Akers
Stars: Marlon Wayans, Tyriq Withers, Julia Fox
Synopsis: A young athlete descends into a world of terror when he’s invited to train with a legendary champion whose charisma curdles into something darker.
Marlon Wayans is good in Him—very good. Known for his hyper-animated style in films like the Scary Movie franchise, White Chicks, Little Man, and Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, his quick banter and outrageous antics have earned him a devoted fan base. Yet Wayans is also a performer who can excel in drama, choosing roles in films like Requiem for a Dream and Respect that reveal a range from heartbreaking to menacing.
Him is a horror film from executive producer Jordan Peele that seamlessly incorporates Wayans’ manic style into something magnetic and gripping, underscoring the thin line between comedy and horror. His superb comic timing shapes a decisive supporting turn, heightened by the uncertainty and surprise his characters bring, as well as the visceral reactions both genres provoke. Yet it’s a shame, because the film itself is strikingly bad, a hollow mess of style over substance that even the best intentions cannot save.
At least the comedies we listed above from Wayans know they are big, dumb movies. With Him, however, director Justin Tipping seems unaware of just how profoundly empty his third feature actually is. A scattershot fever dream about toxic masculinity and community trauma that fails to make an impact beyond a visually provocative lens.
The story follows Cameron Cade (I Know What You Did Last Summer’s Tyriq Withers), a rising star on the verge of an exciting professional football career: the money, the women, the fame. Cade has been built for this moment. Unfortunately, the night before the scouting combine, he is attacked by a crazed, obsessed fan and left with potential brain trauma that puts his career in doubt. Thankfully, Cade has an admirer who is willing to take him under his wing to give him the second chance he so rightfully deserves.
That would be Isaiah White (Wayans), a Tom Brady-like legendary figure of professional football. White has eight rings and a culture touchstone that changed the game forever. So, in other words, he’s “Him.” Isaiah flies Cameron out to his home, more like a stronghold of isolation, where he lives with his social media darling wife, Elsie (Uncut Gems’ Julia Fox). As his training progresses, Cade’s transformation extends far beyond his body; he is plunged into madness, proving that the game is just as much psychological as it is physical.
Him was written by Tipping, Skip Bronkie, and Zak Akers, and the movie is free of subtext—or at the very least does such a poor job of communicating its ambitious themes, so the screenplay carries as much weight as a balloon filled with hot air. That’s because the first two acts are filled with overt exposition, trying to cover it with an overwrought cinematic style that is almost morbidly self-indulgent. The film is edited in a way that makes the audience disoriented, with an almost appallingly disjointed narrative, and an obnoxious sound design that seems to lack a point beyond highlighting style.
Yes, film is a visual medium. But the visual structure and supporting audio must lead to something more substantial. Imagine a film that truly explored a professional athlete’s drive, desire, and obsession with winning—yet at what cost? Instead, Tipping and company have written a film that plays like an Instagram reel, devoid of substance, reducing the game of professional football to little more than a film staged for the algorithm, turning the brutality of the gridiron into mere social media vanity.
Even the film’s imagery is pretentious and over-the-top. From an attacker dressed in a “goat” costume to a football team named the ‘Saviors,’ you feel as if you’re being hand-held against your will through the story so you won’t get lost in its muddled sensory mess. Then, when Him finally gets to the third act that has so little payoff, the script begins to wallow in over-explaining the final twist of toxic masculinity that is the cinematic equivalent of mansplaining.
Justin Tipping’s Him had potential, and if you’ll allow me to throw out a handful of puns, almost every critic has surely done with this film, fumbles, throws away, and steps out of bounds long before the filmmakers can score.
