Him

Every year, the NFL and NBA draft is a spectacle we all get to witness. While we as fans might plan our entire day around watching it, the players involved have built their whole lives around that moment. Regular folks like us will never truly know — or experience — what top-tier athletes go through daily, or over the course of their lives, just to reach that point. Movies have often captured the thrill of victory and the pain of defeat, but the deeper stories of the players themselves don’t get told nearly enough. Well, that is — until Him.

The GOAT debate is one of the most popular conversations any time multiple sports fans gather. For Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers), though, there’s no debate: the answer is Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans). White has led his team to nine championships, and young Cameron grew up idolizing him, determined to become the next Isaiah White. Cameron works hard and earns the title of best quarterback prospect going pro — but an accident threatens to take it all away.

After the accident, Cameron gets invited to train with Isaiah for a week. Against his doctor’s advice, he accepts. At first, things feel normal: practice drills, physicals, standard training. But as the week goes on, things turn stranger. Cameron begins to question if he even wants to be there — yet Isaiah keeps pushing, testing how much he really wants greatness. That relentless drive pushes Cameron into places he never imagined, while giving the audience a glimpse of what it must feel like to live at that rarefied level.

Written by Zack Akers, Skip Bronkie, and Justin Tipping (who also directs), Him ultimately aims to critique professional sports and the organizations fans love so much. The problem is, it misses more than it hits. There’s a sharp idea buried in here — about the almost religious hold football and sports have on players and fans alike — but the execution feels underdeveloped. For Cameron, much of his motivation stems from his late father, who drilled into him the “real men make sacrifices, no guts, no glory” philosophy. It’s what drove him to this point. Him wants to be a horror story about professional sports, but it stumbles under the weight of its own message.

To its credit, Him has flashes of promise. The use of X-ray-style visuals during football hits is clever, and the film is well-shot and well-cast. Those touches make you root for it. But its biggest flaw is that it telegraphs everything it’s doing, draining away suspense and impact. Among the cast, Wayans stands out most — he gets to flex his acting muscles here, and he delivers. Unfortunately, his performance alone isn’t enough to lift Him to respectability.

In the end, Him wants to pull us into its web of ideas, but instead it gives us flat characters, little suspense, and far too much explanation of its own tricks. It’s a movie that wants to say a lot, but ultimately says very little. By the time it reaches a finale meant to shock, you no longer care. Him doesn’t fumble in a close game — it fumbles on the opening kickoff, leaving the audience wondering what they just watched.