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DIRECTED BY: Justin Tipping
FEATURING: Tyriq Withers, Marlon Wayans
PLOT: After suffering a traumatic injury just before the draft, a star college football player attends a remote retreat to be mentored by his idol, who years ago suffered a similar setback before making an unlikely comeback.
COMMENTS:
Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him.
Stamina, speed, and sacrifice: three elements you need to become the GOAT. Especially sacrifice. Football must be what drives you. Forget family, forget God. Everything for the game. Isaiah understands this—it’s why he ushered his team, The Saviors, to victory in eight Super Bowl championships. But Isaiah has grown old, and new blood must take the helm. Does this young rising star have what it takes?
And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
The parallel backgrounds of Isaiah (Marlon Wayons) and Cam (Tyriq Withers) are slammed on the screen, sports news-style, showboating the talent and lite psychosis of the fanatical athlete mind. Growing up, Cam watched Isaiah dominate the field, all under the relentless pressure from his own father to become HIM, to become the GOAT. Cycle forward a decade-and-a-half, and Cam is on the cusp of his first professional draft. Then one night, after practice, he ends up brained by a warhammer-wielding team mascot.
And said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
The bulk of the story unfolds within Isaiah’s remote compound, chronicling a week of Cam’s trials as he recovers from his injury while attempting to gain his idol’s favor. During that time things become strange—borderline weird, in fact. Mystical overtones abut sports satire: Isaiah’s wife is a cryptic marvel heading up a cavalcade of followers, enablers, psychos, and fools. HIM (all capitals, mind you) has smash-style to spare, and as it ratchets up the intensity, so it also ratchets a primordial kind of evil. I shall say no more on that point, save my observation that I’m not sure whether the finale went too far, or not far enough. Regardless, the talents behind HIM rise to the difficult challenge of providing me a third sports movie I can wholeheartedly recommend.
For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
I watched this a couple weeks ago, and I’d put it in a little “box” (still unnamed) of movies with a structure just opaque enough in a few aspects that makes you wonder by the end “well, but what was that about?” in regards to its underlying concept or supernatural elements. Like a feeling of something conceptually more sinister, complex, or at the very least with ulterior motives lurking under the plot’s surface.
I got the same feeling from movies like Babak Anvari’s “Wounds”, Tara Subkoff’s “#Horror” and Neil Breen’s “Fateful Findings”; I think even “After Last Season” would fit that criteria.
I hear you.
This was a close call, in regards to my Capsule designation; and thinking on this again, I simultaneously wish I knew more—or less.