A few days after Justin Tipping’s 2025 film Him hit theaters, I announced to my friend that I planned to go see it, foolishly conveying my excitement. Without looking up from her laptop, she responded that she heard it was a total waste of time. She knew a guy who saw it and said it was, “like, a 4/10 or something — 2 stars.”
But then the girl behind her looked at us because we were talking loud as hell in an otherwise silent classroom right before our lecture and she told me she thought it was good. I asked her, how good? And she said she’d watched it twice. Like, she went to the theater, purchased a ticket, went home, went back, purchased a second ticket, and watched it again. And she still thought it was good.
Dramatic gasp! I had never been more curious about a movie that initially had a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes. I needed to see it for myself.
I don’t want to inundate you with the specifics of my arrival at the theater and ensuing horrific encounter with a broken escalator at the bottom of three straight flights of stairs and how, as I gazed up at the top, I felt as if I was a young girl at the bottom of Tianmen Mountain, but I will say this: when I entered the film in a sweltering eighty degree theater with broken AC and the world’s loudest fan blasting lukewarm air at the seats, all I was thinking to myself was, this movie better be good. Jordan Peele helped with production or something and some girl in my one class said she watched it two times. That inherently means it has to be enjoyable and if it is not, I will be wildly disappointed.
I will also say this: the trailer was awesome. I watched it on YouTube as soon as I saw a story attaching it to Jordan Peele’s name, and I choked on the water I was drinking. A sports horror! I’ve never seen one of those before! And oh, Peele, you mastermind, I know you’re gonna kill this! I then learned, multiple months later, that this is actually the work of director Justin Tipping. Justin Tipping? Damn it! Now I have these high expectations and it’s all gonna fall on this random director’s shoulders. It felt unfair and I was, frankly, afraid I would be harsh on the film if it fell short of my expectation of greatness.
Yet I came to understand Tipping is his own kind of director, distinctive in his usage of cinematography and audio, both of which stood out to me in their own ways. In Him, there’s a shot of protagonist Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers) approaching a bathtub in an extravagant green bathroom, but a few seconds into the shot a hand drops down into the foreground and you realize you’ve been watching his reflection the whole time while he’s been approaching the camera from behind, offscreen.
The whole film is designed this way, all the audiovisual effects compounding into a psychologically disorienting and deeply unsettling experience for the viewer. Cade gets a concussion and for a few thrilling minutes, everything is affected by his injury. The sounds are strange and distorted and crafted to overwhelm even the sanest viewer, so you can understand exactly why he reacts the way he does.
Tyriq Withers was the hero of this movie both in and out of his role. I was ready to accept that this man was truly an up-and-coming living legend – he embodied his character so well, so effortlessly. For the most part he looked amazing doing it, but wasn’t afraid to get ugly when he had to. When he had to insinuate an emotion without showing it on his face, especially during wider shots, he subtly but effectively conveyed the feeling with nothing but his inflection and body language. Withers is an actor with immense nuance and control. I would love to see him in more roles.
It became clear, very early on, that this was meant to be a satire on sports culture. The premise itself supports this message, as it revolves around the existence of the cult of Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), the GOAT of American football. I was loving my satire interpretation, eating up every little detail that supported it. I was analyzing the visuals, the colors and compositions and the jump cuts meant to disorient the audience, looking for deeper meaning and understanding, trying to gauge where things were going. My hope was a snowball rolling down a wintry hillside, picking up velocity and mass and gaining momentum at an exponential rate. I felt like I was about to watch the craziest ending ever.
And then, to my upmost horror, the ending fell flat.
This is not to say the ending is not exciting. It is exciting! It’s bloody, so super bloody, Tarantino levels of bloody. Withers is covered in blood shirtless. There’s something in it for everyone. But in my heart of hearts, I knew the plot could have been so much more. Tipping had built so much suspense, so much atmosphere. And then it’s just blood, blood, blood. A head gets cut off and a blood fountain ensues, Kill Bill style. It was campy and wonderful, but the trailer itself kind of gave it away, so I knew bloody Tyriq Withers was a thing that would happen, taking away the shock factor.
(Who made the trailer? Whoever made the trailer – great job! But my experience was ruined because of you. So, in that sense, bad job. The trailer in itself is a work of art. The movie needs to be experienced without watching the trailer.)
My main critique is simply that the plot set itself up to be something insane, something bold and brave and new, about the nature of sports and the sport industry and the depth of violence in our culture as Americans, but then it simplified down to: there is a cult and they are crazy and evil. Look, look at this cult, this small subset of people who love the GOAT. They are the issue.
I suppose there are a few executives involved in the film, rich people, all that. But it didn’t connect that way, like holding up a mirror for the audience. From the start and throughout the film, the audience feels alienated from the cult. Tipping, you are making fun of sports fans, and by the end of the film you’re making fun of a cult and the sports aspect is lost, reduced to “this is a weird fictional crazy cult.” You back down from your stand. Come on, Justin! Bring it full circle. Five more minutes, one more scene, could have made it so much stronger and clearer.
When the credits rolled, I was angry, but before that, I was enthralled. It’s a good film from a technical standpoint. I really did enjoy my time watching it in the horrifically hot theater with broken AC, and the ending was my only big holdup. Tipping has immense potential as a director and I better see Tyriq Withers in more films.
Overall: 4 out of 5 stars, but had some real potential to be more. I genuinely don’t understand why it has such poor ratings and I don’t think it should discourage people from going to see it for themselves. Maybe you’ll understand something I didn’t about the ending and find it more meaningful. Who knows, maybe I didn’t dig deep enough. More importantly, I hope this gets Tyriq Withers some attention and more opportunities to act in films, but let the man keep his shirt on and perform a more emotionally complex role. He’s clearly got it in Him!
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