Cameron Cade has only one mission in life: being the best player in American football. Nothing else matters for this star sports star (played by Tyriq Withers, a kind of kind of statue, fans can recognize from “I know what you did last summer”), which is on the way to the combination, where professional teams cover emerging players. Cam does not just want to be written. He wants to be the goat. Currently, this title belongs to Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), but the contract of the winner of eight times is in place, and he is looking for someone worthy to fill his shoes. “I am him!” Young Cam shouts in a demonstration of self -confidence.
But there can only be one goat, and “him” seems long and hard what it costs to succeed in one of the most popular institutions in America. If the studio’s (however sexy) sinister marketing gives the impression that a film for sports fans, think again. Director Justin Tipping (sorted by producer Jordan Peele on the strength of his beginnings in 2016, “Kicks”) has an ultra-critical vision of football, which is presented here as an ancient quasi-culture has transformed toxic goods-the one that channels the aggression of the public in an almost theatrical form of floated fighting, in which the victims (or the parasists of parasites) came out with the turf.
The tilting embraces the self-indulgent “high horror” label, creating a tense, tripping and ultra-studded film which is sometimes surreal, it may have the impression of watching an extension of Matthew Barney’s “Cremaster Cycle”. Again, there is probably not much overlap between this scarce artistic project – Busby Berkeley n ° 1 training training on a football field – and populist tilting and Peele target here (Barney has further deepened in sport with the “secondary” show last year). Perhaps a horror film of the discouraging body like “The Substance” gives a better idea of what to expect.
Strengthened by elegant digital cinematography and a tense electronic partition, “Him” abandons the sports film is emphasized on competitive matches in favor of Twisted Mind Games, many of whom have consequences of life and death. The whole thing comes down to two key players: Cam Cade and Isaiah White, which the promising young quarter-rear has been idolizing for years. What happens now if Isaiah invited Cam to train at home in Texas, playing with the head of the ambitious recruit at each stage of the path? Like the devil on his shoulder, his agent (Tim Heideker) is all for that. There is no angel who advises him differently.
From an early age, Cam was conditioned to believe that football is the most important thing. Make it the most important third: God comes first. Then family. Then football. Cam has his priorities in order, respecting his mother while trying to honor his late father, who instilled in Cam the conviction that he could be the best player that sport has ever known. We see Cam’s father planting the seed of this obsession during a childhood flashback. Cam is sitting in front of the TV, glued to the game which almost ended the career of Isaiah.
Although “him” spends beyond the exhausting hours of Cam father’s conditioning, we know the scoring: football parents are just as intense as stage mothers. And why? Because having a child who becomes pro can install them for life. For people in cam position, it is a shortcut to the American dream. When Isaiah invites Cam to come and train in her desert complex – which looks like a cross between a brutalist bunker and a Villian Bond hideout – he has already been warned by his doctor that another head to the head could lead him to life.
Some horror films hide their themes under a Slasher Schlocky surface. Not “Him”, which presents a certain number of really disconcerting situations – of the mascot that broke the skull of Cam after training in the final in which the team owners appear in literal pigskins – but would be difficult to read in a strictly literal way. Over the symbols, Cam appears shirtless or naked half of the time, which means that he presents himself both as a well -sculpted character and a specimen to objectify. He was washed by the brain by someone else’s ideas on what it means to be a man. How much can we trust someone’s perceptions with a head injury? A large part of what the experience of our protagonist is distorted through levels of paranoia, hallucination or physical impossibility.
People die in this film, and no one seems to worry about it, which could be a metaphor for how the professional sport industry is set up and eliminates its warriors. The fulguement argues very early on, inevitably leads us to think of concussion, a responsibility for sport with distant consequences. And Cam is not an abandonment, led rather by the words of his father: “This is what real men do, make sacrifices.” Among the many questions “him” asks the public, it is this, from Isaiah, who resonates with Cam: “What are you ready to sacrifice?”
We have already seen the injury of Isaiah, a knotty fracture where its broken tibia torn the skin. Better yourself for such visuals in a film that can be heard on the flashing X-rays, UV analyzes and CG rendering of the damage that football does to the human body. Isaiah had to do a kind of good deal to continue playing, we assume, and “him” is slowly built in the revelation of what it implies.
Will Cam accept the same pact, or is it not committed enough (which, in this case, would mean going home to a body bag)? He appears naive each time he complains of shortcuts and cheating in a sport where everyone does something shadows to move forward, injections (so many needles!) To develop blood transfusions (the film is soaked in stuff). But Cam plays according to the rules, which does it actually – in a nod to another Wayans film – the last scout. In the midst of thrills, “Him” reminds you of sport and everything he requires, potentially doing monsters of our heroes in the process. But as saying the saying: don’t hate the player, hate the game.
