HIM

I admit I WAS one of the people who got tricked by the dedicated marketing scheme into thinking that this was a Jordan Peele movie. I was also a little surprised (maybe I shouldn't have been surprised) at the general letterboxd public vitriol. Yes this movie was lame but it was also so fun and isn't having fun the #1 rule of football?? This film has beautiful imagery, incredible set design, and made me think about many complex topics. The film was shot like a 90 minute Nike commercial, and as someone who both went to Nike University and quit a sport I loved because of fear of head trauma, I found that really compelling. A narrative about how contact sports like football ritualistically deify physical trauma and prey on underprivileged black men desiring to secure success for their families is so hypothetically interesting. But on the train home from the theater Anaya very emphatically pointed out to me that something making you 'think' is not necessarily narrative, and narrative really is where this movie falls short. This movie implies so much but says so little. Supposedly there is an alternate script to this film that does not culminate in the random motiveless slasher ending, and I wish I could've seen that version. I think it would've pushed my rating higher. Conclusion sentence: we both giggled when he axed those old guys in the pig masks at the end. He was tossing the ol' pigskin around!