Film Review of the Week

Horror

Him (18)

Review: In an era when top athletes are venerated as gods and devoted fans become their adoring acolytes, who assumes the role of monsters? Us or them? Director Justin Tipping explores the price of fame in a cautionary psychological horror thriller produced by Jordan Peele, which fumbles the ball before it can score a touchdown with potent themes of toxic masculinity, self-sacrifice and menacing mentorship. A script co-written by Tipping, Skip Bronkie and Zack Akers inflicts a traumatic brain injury on the lead character in the opening act and spends the next hour bombarding us with nightmarish imagery inside his head and in the real world.

It becomes impossible to distinguish between the two and Tipping provides us with no signposts, so when people start to die and gallons of viscous red blood slosh around the screen, why should anyone care when it could all be a figment of the anti-hero’s fracturing mind? That tug of war between internalised and externalised fear ultimately cleaves apart Him, leaving just committed performances from Tyriq Withers and Marlon Wayans as ambitious protege and seasoned veteran embroiled in a messy exchange of power and chest-puffing machismo. The bewildering climax resembles a gorier version of the series of aftershave commercials that feature topless and chiselled male sports stars wandering around a sun-baked desertscape. Take a big whiff, Tipping’s film smells a little off.

Cameron Cade (Withers) is predicted to be the next great quarterback of American football, realising the dream of his late father (Don Benjamin), who instilled in him the mantra: No guts. No glory. During a night-time training session, Cameron suffers a blow to the head that throws his glittering future with the San Antonio Saviors into doubt. His mother Yvette (Indira G Wilson) and girlfriend Adrienne (Tierra Whack) assure him the injury is a minor setback.

To allay the team owners’ fears, Cameron follows the advice of his manager (Tim Heidecker) and agrees to attend a week-long boot camp run by retiring quarterback Isaiah White (Wayans) at his secluded desert compound. Behind closed doors in air-conditioned luxury, Cameron endures an unorthodox training regime that will supposedly prepare him to accept the mantle from Isaiah. However, the radical methods employed by Isaiah’s social influencer wife Elsie (Julia Fox) and the compound’s staff, including medic Marco (Jim Jeffries), untether Cameron from reality.

Bookmarked into chapters representing the days of the training camp, Him strives to mimic the unsettling tone of Peele’s 2019 doppelganger horror Us but Tipping traps his film in limbo between being scary and creepy. Consequently, he achieves neither. A teased jump scare involving Isaiah’s deranged fan Marjorie (Naomi Grossman) descends into absurdity. Tipping and co-writers crowd the playing field with interesting ideas but they can’t string together successful passes between them.

Drama

The Smashing Machine (15)

Review: Dwayne Johnson muscles his way into possible Oscar contention in writer-director Benny Safdie’s lightweight biopic of a sports star, who was considered one of the fiercest bare-knuckle fighters on the planet in his heyday. Focusing on the period between 1997 and 2000 when Ohio-born wrestler and mixed martial artist Mark Kerr rose to fame, The Smashing Machine is an underdog story elevated by Safdie’s trademark documentary-style direction and stellar performances.

With the aid of impressive prosthetics, Johnson vanishes completely beneath the sweat-glistened façade of his flawed trailblazer, who becomes addicted to opioids as he punishes his battered and bruised body beyond the normal limits of human endurance. Johnson catalysts electrifying on-screen chemistry with Emily Blunt as Mark’s model girlfriend, who begs him to get into rehab then bitterly resents being sidelined when he relies on a sponsor to guide him through recovery. Their compelling portrayal of a couple perpetually on the precipice of a blazing argument hits harder than a script that defies expectations more than once en route to a conventional tournament showdown.

Safdie blurs boundaries between dramatisation and recreation with a supporting cast of real-life MMA stars and boxers including Ryan Bader and Mark’s trainer Bas Rutten, playing himself. The film opens with Mark (Johnson) making an indelible impact at his first MMA tournament in Sao Paulo by pummelling every opponent who strays into the ring. The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which pits competitors with different martial arts skills against each other, is still in its infancy. Consequently, Mark showcases his muscular talents at the Pride Fighting Championships in Japan.

He is supported by girlfriend Dawn (Blunt), who repeatedly distracts Mark from concentrating on his training. His aura of invincibility is shattered when Igor Vovchanchyn (Oleksandr Usyk) overpowers him in a bout in Japan. Mark tumbles down a rabbit hole of painkiller abuse and eventually enters rehab, emerging clean and committed to rebuilding his strength and confidence with trainer Bas Rutten. In the interim, good friend Mark Coleman (Bader) rediscovers his form and is one of the favourites to claim the 200,000 US dollars prize purse at the next Pride Fighting Championship. Kerr’s physically gruelling revival puts him on a collision course with his countryman, presuming Dawn’s mood swings don’t derail preparations.

The Smashing Machine is a confidently constructed portrait of a mild-mannered and softly spoken brawler, whose Achilles’s heel was believing that he could never be bested in the ring. Bader offers convincing support and the film avoids predictable tugs of heartstrings until closing images of the real-life Kerr and some of the people who moulded him. Safdie grapples with Mark’s incredible story and maintains a firm grip for extended periods of this two-hour bout.