It is All About HIM

 

Jeri Jacquin

Currently on 4K Ultra HD, Bluray and streaming from director Justin Tipping, Monkeypaw Productions and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment is a story all about HIM.

Cameron ‘Cam’ Cade (Tyriq Withers) has grown up believing in his favorite team the San Antonio Saviors watching his idol Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans) along with his father. While watching a game, the young boy sees White become injured only to be consoled by his father about sacrificing for the game. Years later, it is Cam who is becoming the rising football star with his family cheering him on. Like White, it takes only a moment before Cam suffers a serious head injury.

Agent Tom (Tim Heidecker) suggests that he still try to get the quarterback position with the Saviors but Cam is furious at the notion. That’s when he learns that White might be retiring and wants to train with Cam for a bit to see if the young man might be his successor on the field. There isn’t a moment to sit back and take in the desert surroundings as White puts Cam through drills that would make any other coach horrified, yet, he continues. Cam also received boosters but it doesn’t help with the hallucinations he is experiencing. White’s wife Elsie (Julia Fox) tries to explain her husband’s unique training with a charm that causes problems.

It all comes to a head as Cam begins to understand what is happening and there is only one way to make it stop – and it isn’t with a football.

Withers as Cam is a young man who was raised to love the game and even more the San Antonio Saviors. Watching with his father, that dream could have turned bad after White’s accident but his father keeps him looking forward. Well on his way to being that star, it is a head injury that begins to bring things into a world that is disturbing on many levels. Yet, Cam wants it all so badly he endures everything that is thrown at him – until he doesn’t. Withers gives us the performance of a strong-minded young man going through some very strange happenings. It is definitely a trip from start to finish.

Wayans as White is a man who has tasted the good life that sports has offered him and perhaps his time has come but perhaps not. Putting Cam through every twisted test possible, Wayans isn’t portraying comedy here but instead a very focused and powerful character. It is clear that he is afraid of nothing and, even more, nothing shocks him at all. This is quite a different role for Wayans but he clearly doesn’t hesitate to grab onto it and take the viewer on a ride.

Fox as Elise is not just the wife of a player but a social media person in her own right. She is there to support her husband of course, but she also seems to have an agenda of her own that puts Cam in danger. I love the flippant attitude of Fox’s character but it all slowly becomes clear as to what her role is in the craziness.

Other cast include Maurice Greene as Malek, Don Benjamin as Cam Sr., Heather Harris as Jasmine, Norman Towns as Willis, Gigi Erneta as Ayn, Chase Garland as Ced, Guapdad 4000 as Murph, Tierra Whack as Adrienne, Gerone McKinley as Drew, Indira Wilson as Yvette, Naomi Grossman as Marjorie and Jim Jefferies as Marco.

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment has just added an amazing film to their library and making it available for us to all experience and re-experience in our own home theaters. There are films of every genre available from scary to drama to family films. For more of what they have to offer please visit www.uphe.com.

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Bonus Features include Alternate Ending: Zay’s Nightmare, Deleted End Credits Scene, Deleted Scenes, Becoming Them, The Sport of Filmmaking, Anatomy of a Scene, Hymns of a G.O.A.T. and Feature Commentary with Director/Co-Writer Justin Tipping.

HIM is definitely a film that has a twisted, mind-bending feel to it. It took me a minute to realize what other film made me think this way and it is the 1999 Stanley Kubrick film EYES WIDE SHUT. Co-writer and Director Tipping takes us down a rabbit hole but is it a rabbit hole? Can you believe everything you are seeing? Who do you trust of the people you should be able to trust! No one should be surprised that the film is under the Jordan Peele umbrella as he serves as the producer.

What this film does is bring ‘sports horror’ into a genre that always needs shaking up now and then. Those two words go well together considering how the injuries that happen in football can sometimes be horrifying. Once Cam is hurt, the pressure is on to continue and it comes from all sides – in this case his own agent. Tipping and Peele take the ball (yes, a pun) and run with it in this story of what one man will do to keep his dream alive and it isn’t the normal paved road.

This is a film that is going to bring about a lot of jaw drops because of the literal trip it is from start to finish. Know that going in because that’s what makes HIM so fascinating to watch and by the end there are conversations that will be had about the pressures on players and dreams that can go up in smoke. You’ll never look at a hit on the field the same way again.

In the end – greatness demands sacrifice!