It's clear that this movie exists just to set up shots like this. Just be a photographer...
Anyone familiar with this blog knows I love a good movie reference but when your only purpose is to set up scenes to reference older movies and/or paintings, I have a problem with that...
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| The Street Fighter / The Story Of Riki-Oh / Him |
I will say that between One Battle After Anoter and Him, the understanding that some people have of biracial people is very naive and a little troubling. I’ve noticed that the Blackness of biracial is so conditional when it comes to Black folks. If you’re half Black and mixed with anything else and you just happen to simply mention that one of your parents is white or Asian or Latino, you’re met with this weird hostility form a certain sector of insecure Black people that think you’re treating your Blackness as lesser than (just recently Carmelo Anthony shouted out his Puerto Rican father at his hall of fame induction speech and so many Black Americans took offense to it). If you’re biracial and you date a light skin woman (or another biracial woman) you’re automatically a colorist that doesn’t like dark skin Black woman. It’s very childish and weird. There’s something so insecure about some modern Black people that a lot of their (very personal) insecurities get projected on to biracial people. At times, Him plays out like it was made by someone with no understanding of Biracial people outside of commentary from bitter folks on TikTok and Twitter. There's a lot of projection on to Him but if your aren't familiar with certain spaces/podcasts/social circles/social media accounts, you won't get it.
What’s so frustrating about Him is that in the right hands this could have been an interesting movie. A top prospect college quarterback (Cameron Cade) has his skull cracked right before the draft and he loses every offer except one. He goes off to train for a week with his idol (Isaiah White) whose spot he may be taking as White is considering retirement. Each day gets weirder and Cameron starts to notice things aren’t what they seem. Throw in the psychological horror aspect and you got something. I’m not saying this would have been a masterpiece but it could have been interesting in a good way.
Besides the aforementioned issues concerning how this film handles race in a naive rage-baiting kind of way, its relationship to football seems very naive as well. No offense but this movie comes off like it was directed by someone that never played a competitive sport let alone high level football. It's like it was directed by someone that made up a bunch of bad stereotypes about all athletes and then believed them just to get upset.
As I was watching Him I kept wondering if the director’s only relationship with football was watching Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday. I’m sure Him will be used as another indictment on toxic masculinity. I’ll be the first to acknowledge the sometimes obvious male-centric toxicity in football that starts early on in pop warner or middle school but if you don’t know it firsthand it’s easier for you to fall victim to showing it in a very naive and childish way. And that’s what happens with Him.
This is for people that don’t actually watch football but obsess over things like Travis Kelce’s dating life or angrily question why Pat Mahomes didn’t marry a Black woman. I imagine people that like to dissect the imagery in Kendrick Lamar music videos will find Him “deep” and/or “layered”. It’s not tho. Between the not-so hidden satanic imagery and all the implications about sacrifices & rituals - the movie wears its agenda on its sleeve. And if that stuff still goes over your head, don’t worry….comedian Jim Jeffries plays a personal trainer that constantly warns our young star athlete to watch out. *SPOILERS* apparently there’s a secret society/organization that grooms young biracial boys since childhood to become football stars. So outside of the target audience I mentioned earlier - this movie plays in to the dumb conspiracy theories believed by Joe Rogan/Alex Jones listeners.
This movie is just bad. The Adam Sandler remake of The Longest Yard is a better look at football and race relations. If you do see this, stick around for the ending. As bad as the movie is, I doubt nothing will prepare you for the climax.
