Why HIM by director Jordan Peele is my favorite movie of all time (slight spoilers)

I will preface this blog with the question, have you ever wanted something so badly you would sacrifice your everything for it?

Jordan Peele (yes, of Key & Peele) has created the equivalent of this question as a movie in HIM. The protagonist of HIM is Cameron Cade, a star college football player and an aspiring NFL player born in a family obsessed with football (American) so much so that, as a child, when Cameron shies away from a live view of a player with a broken leg dangling off of their femur his dad forces him to watch and tells Cameron that what that player sacrificed is what real warriors do. (I'll try not to spoil too much but the beginning of this is in the first 5 mins and the rest has been in teasers/trailers). Shortly before his NFL combine test to he receives head trauma and, while injured gives a lackluster performance, crushing his odds at being drafted. All of his bad luck seems to have turned around when his home team, the fictional San Antonio Saints, offer him a position dependent on his participation in an isolated training camp with his hero Isaiah White. Isaiah is the antagonist of HIM and is best described as someone who is obsessed with being a warrior. All throughout his training compound are pelts and trophies of animals and hides, given similar importance as to his trophies and rings, all hunted by him, all won by him. While, at first, their training is normal yet extreme it quickly becomes more and more brutal with Cameron having to take performance enhancing drugs to stay competitive compared to the equally motivated candidates Isaiah says are willing to take his spot.

Overall the lighting and cinematography is very well done and reminiscent of the movie Bronson and there are so many great and disturbing scenes in this movie like when a crazed streaker sneaks backstage and Cameron signs his body or when Cameron is picking at and opening the wound on his head in a hyperbaric chamber (high oxygen and pressure for recovery). But if I had to pick out 2 standout scenes the first one would be where we see Isaiah go head to helmet with a drugged up Cameron saying, "This ain't no mf*ing game, this is everything," he then asks, "what are you willing to sacrifice," to which Cameron responds, "EVERYTHING." This scene has so much raw passion in it and it's the first time we see Isaiah's view on football and the mania to which he has towards it. The other standout scene is when Cameron is forced to do well in a drill under the threat of someone being killed, it's so good and so snappy and visceral I'd rather you watch it than read it here.

Without a master a knight is just a rogue (technically Hedge Knight) and what is a gladiator without an arena. If the arena is a football field and the masters are sports teams/franchises a warrior would be a player, fighting for the amusement of spectators and the means of franchisees. The undercurrent that drives the movie is the owners of the San Antonio Saints to which HIM highlights both Cameron and Isaiah are pawns of and that all of Cameron's struggle is to fill the indifferent pockets of a rich man (Bread and circus etc.). And in the end Cameron is given a decision to sign his life to this cause and be just like Isaiah, I won't spoil what he picked but in the end HIM shows the audience what it means to sacrifice everything and push yourself to the limit.

Personally, I find romanticism in the single minded sacrifice to one cause and obsession with being the best, possibly because I participate in sports too but this movie is really for anyone who enjoys film and seeing the human limit pushed to the extreme which is why this is my favorite movie of all time and why you should watch it too.