Him

Since childhood, college star Cameron Cade has had only one dream: to one day play in the NFL. A dream that seems to be shattered when, on the eve of the draft, he is struck in the head by a mysterious mascot. But there is salvation, and when his biggest idol, the eight-time Superbowl winner Isiah White (Marlon Wayans) who led the San Antonio Saviors with a tactful hand and ingenious understanding of the game for nearly two decades invites him to his own "compound" for a couple of weeks of guidance, training and general sharpening of his football talents, Cade of course gladly accepts.

"Pout your lips, please!"

It soon becomes apparent, however, that Isiah is a kind of sports-focused cult leader whose drills and exercises are not only physically tough and gruelling, but also viciously bloody and more of a twisted collection of football-oriented rituals. Cade, however, is determined to pass them all, to get through and beyond the ordeal that stands before him and thus rediscover the possibility of becoming a Savior, of reaching where he always wanted to be.

Whazzup playa!

Him has been marketed for over a year as "the new film from Jordan Peele" (Get Out, Us, Nope) and his much-hyped production company Monkeypaw Productions, but is not directed by Get Out-Peele but by Justin Tipping, who for several years worked on the direction of the TV series Dear White People. Peele's now distinctive narrative style is included here, however, as it's clear that the production itself has been run through Monkeypaw's rather tight visual filters and because Tipping very, very much wants to be as sharp as Jordan, to make a film as remarkable as Nope. Unfortunately, he doesn't succeed here with anything, at all.

New PB on the way now that the new compression jersey has finally arrived...

There are definite Cronenberg vibes here and enough flat thematics and heaven/hell to choke a horse and although Wayans portrays the controlling, manic White, there really isn't much in Him worth talking about. Cinematographer Kira Kelly manages to capture the often heightened, unhinged madness that Tipping hopes will terrify with a clinical purity, mixing chalk-white rooms with darkened sauna sessions, blood and fever dreams in a way that could have been effective and beautiful if the story itself and the storytelling hadn't come across as mere posturing. For Him has nothing to say. There is nothing here of real value other than surface and a desire to be like something else, and it bored the hell out of me. There is an idea that social satire should resonate with today's sectarianism in both politics and culture, but it doesn't work. There is an idea of saying something about racism in today's sporting world, but it is lost because Him shouts loudest, but basically has neither something to say that has not been said much better by many others, nor any effective ways of saying it.