Madden NFL 2025

Film: Him
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on massive television.

Movies like Him present a problem for me. I generally only do a full review of a movie from the last few years if I think it’s worth the time and effort, and Him isn’t. But I also know that the They Shoot Zombies list is still being updated pretty much every year, and there’s a non-zero chance that this will show up on it in the future. It shouldn’t, but it is better than some of the movies that have made that list. And, honestly, it’s not a movie I necessarily want to watch a second time. I don’t say this to dissuade anyone from watching on their own. Him has a lot of promise; it just doesn’t fulfill that promise.

This is very much a sports movie, and it’s one that revels in the idea of football as a sort of religion. That’s a fair position to take. It is close to a religion for a lot of people, and as someone who still lives in the shadow of Chicago where the Bears are resurgent, it feels like a lot of people are seeing the light. But it’s not just “football as religion” that makes the film go. This is football as cult, and it gets into some pretty culty places.

We’re going to be following the story of Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers), a quarterback who has had a tremendous college career and is on the cusp of going pro, but is potentially sidelined due to a traumatic brain injury. He doesn’t go to the combine because of the injury, which hurts his draft chances, but is contacted by his idol, Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), a legendary quarterback with eight rings who happens to be on the edge of retirement. Cameron is invited to come to Isaiah’s compound for something like a personal combine to try out for Isaiah’s team.

And really, that’s the movie. The compound is weird and extensive and includes an indoor short field. Everything starts out as fun and games, but gets weird quickly. Cameron starts receiving injections of an unknown substance from Isaiah’s personal trainer (Jim Jeffries), and the drills start to become a great deal more vicious. In one drill, Cameron is given two seconds to complete a pass or another man standing directly in front of an automatic football throwing machine takes a high-speed ball to the face repeatedly. Cameron may or may not be having some hallucinations, may or may not be sexual coerced by Isaiah’s wife Elsie (Julia Fox), and still has no idea what he is being injected with.

The idea behind Him is an interesting one, and there is a movie to be made with this basic plot. While this takes the idea of the cult of personality pretty literally and does the same with the idea of people who essentially worship at the alter of football, there is a lesson in the allegory. We are frequently obsessed with the lives of others, particularly the famous. We are fascinated by them, envious of them, and sometimes repulsed by them. Him takes that idea and explores the question of how much of themselves those people who are frequently idolized have to cut, change, hide, or otherwise tear down. It’s legitimately a story that can be told and could be very powerful in the world today.

Him does no real disservice to this idea in general, but instead of keeping things in anything like a semblance of the real world, we’re going to start touching on elements of otherworldly presences and a history of rituals and cult sacrifices that go back into history.

The problem with Him is simply that it tries to freak out the audience with some of these rituals that show up and keeps the audience off-balance and never really knowing what is real. The audience is frequently off-balance. That can be a good thing, but it feels overused. We’re never going to get any firm footing. The reason for this is worse—it seems very much the case that we are kept off-balance specifically because that’s what passes for philosophy and good filmmaking.

The casting is fine. I like that comedians like Jim Jeffries are used in this, as is Tim Heidecker, who plays Cameron’s agent. Comedians bring something different to the table, and these two are notable in this film. But it feels in a lot of ways like it needed a deep rewrite, especially for the last 15 minutes, which feel nonsensical.

It's it bad? Well, it’s not terrible. It’s also not good at all. The message it seems to want to have is buried under plot points that don’t always pay off and extreme events that beggar the imagination. Shame—it could’ve been great.

Why to watch Him: Marlon Wayans had more than Requiem for a Dream in him.
Why not to watch: It feels like wasted potential.