Publication Date: 09-22-2025

Him (2025) review

Dir. Justin Tipping

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★½

“Much like the 2025 Chicago Bears, the first half at least mostly kept my attention before a completely embarrassing second half meltdown.” – BobMarshall’s Letterboxd review of Him

Thankfully, my Chicago Bears finally won their first game of the season yesterday afternoon, so Justin Tipping’s Him was not the best football product I endured on Sunday. If it were, that would’ve been a touch concerning because it’s a flawed yet fascinating movie that has clearly drawn polarized reactions across various corners of the internet. The metaphorical “hate train” is too easy to board, but take it from me: Him isn’t even close to the worst horror movie I’ve seen this summer.

American football is a religion unto itself. Unlike basketball, baseball, and hockey, your favorite football team plays one game a week. That level of scarcity over the course of 18 breakneck weeks allows games both good and bad to be deciphered and nitpicked while you wait for the next one. Fans dress up in jerseys, gear, and costumes like churchgoers who wouldn’t be caught leaving their homes with neither their cross necklace nor rosary. Finally, when it’s all over, what do we do? Consume articles, sports talk radio, and TV shows while we wait for more football. Whether you follow professional, college, or both, it’s the single greatest reality TV show of our time.

Taking its title from a popular sports phrase used to define an athlete who has proven to have a premium skillset (used in the same lexicon as “GOAT”), Him introduces us to Cameron Cade. Since he was a young boy, Cade has wanted to be a star quarterback just like his idol, Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans) of the San Antonio Saviors. He even watches a bone pierce through White’s leg in the waning moments of another Saviors championship, which, along with his helicopter father, tells him that greatness has a price.

Fast-forward 14 years later, following a decorated collegiate career, Cade (Tyriq Withers) is ready to go pro. White’s contract is up after the upcoming football season, so the Saviors are in the market for his heir apparent. Side-bar: we’re told White has led the Saviors to eight championships. Given that Cade is a highly touted prospect (we’re told he’s good enough to be a “top pick” in the league draft), it would be highly unlikely that the Saviors would be in a position to select him. Whatever. “No guts, no glory,” as his now-late father always said.

Just when he’s prepping to show off his skills at the combine, Cam gets his skull cracked by a demonic figure of some kind, which leads to a very serious brain injury. His agent (a persnickety Tim Heidecker) shuts down any and all press and workouts, leading to an increased mystery around the star — a good, recent NFL comp might be Caleb Williams, given Cade’s enigmatic nature. Eyeing the young stud prospect, White invites him to spend a week at his remote desert compound. He wants to see if Cade has what it takes to succeed him, should the Saviors make him their savior.

White’s compound is a sore for sight eyes. All around this godforsaken desert, feral sycophants and demonic gremlins straight out of Mad Max: Fury Road shriek and pester the potential successor. White takes Cade’s phone when he arrives. “No PornHub. No PornTube. No Grindr. Just football,” he tells him.

If you called Him style over substance, there’s a possibility director/co-writer Justin Tipping would take it as a compliment. The film is layered with sleek visuals: jump-cuts, staccato editing, X-ray visuals that show us the skeletons of the players as they practice football, loud, jarring synth music, courtesy of Bobby Krlic, and a riveting amount of blood generated from concussions and blunt-force trauma. At its best, Him echoes the recent films of Harmony Korine, or even something like Michael Mann’s Miami Vice. The storyline and even the fleeting idea of whether or not these events are actually happening become irrelevant. Justin Tipping’s background is in commercials and music videos, and it’s readily apparent from the jump.

At its worst, however, Him is a one-trick pony of a movie, taking the piss out of the hyper-masculine nature of football and showing how athletes must make a metaphorical deal with the devil in order to be great. It’s a point that writers Tipping, Skip Bronkie, and Zack Akers double and triple-down on to the point where the film doesn’t have a second gear. It’s the perplexing case of a film being both too on-the-nose yet too opaque. Compounding matters is the fact that we don’t get to know a lot about neither Cade nor White. We’re know they’re great at their respective levels of football because we’re told so, time after time. We barely get to know what Cade is thinking, especially since the aforementioned brain injury clubbed the personality out of him and made him easy to overstimulate. White should be grateful to be played by Marlon Wayans, whose wide-eyed intensity and unflinching aggressiveness are put on display in a way that inspires like, say, Dan Campbell. Time will tell if Wayans will seize the opportunity to make fun of himself in the upcoming Scary Movie 6.

Him didn’t work for me entirely, but it entertained me often enough to enjoy its non-linear, hyper-visual nature. Even Tyriq Withers — whose “goofball, dude-bro energy” I praised in the otherwise lowly requel I Know What You Did Last Summer — shines opposite a scene-stealing Wayans. Furthermore, it’s difficult not to be engaged with a film that boasts a soundtrack of early-era Gucci Mane (“Lemonade“), peak-Mobb Deep (“Shook Ones, Part II“), and an infectious title-track from Denzel Curry.

Him was also produced by Jordan Peele, who will be misattributed as the film’s writer/director thanks to the ubiquity of his name on its poster, TV ads, and clickbait-style headlines. Justin Tipping will be the director given the least amount of credit since Nia DaCosta, who could probably host a TED Talk about her thoughts on film journalism after experiencing the same with her sequel to Candyman. Given the pitchforks that have come out for Him, however, maybe Tipping will welcome the relative anonymity.

Starring: Tyriq Withers, Marlon Wayans, Julia Fox, Tim Heidecker, Jim Jefferies, and Naomi Grossman. Directed by: Justin Tipping.