19 | September | 2025 | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

After sitting through two hours of the new and horrible movie “Him,” I started to feel sorry for anyone who goes to this film thinking it’s a Sports movie, a Horror movie, or even a movie. After leaving this waste of two hours, it is impossible for anyone to fully define what this movie is about or why it was even made. Him is one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

The story is about a former quarterback, Isaiah White, played by Marlon Wayans, training a recently injured rookie quarterback Cameron Cade played by Tyriq Withers, in a private and insane facility that includes zombie-like people who roam around a huge training facility. There are violent action scenes that include a football player who lets himself repeatedly get hit in the face, at close range, by a football-throwing machine. Why this scene exists in this movie-mess is another example of a bad story that makes no sense. This entire movie is so bad that it is almost impossible to review, with the best part being that this nightmare of bad movie-making eventually does end.

The Rotten Tomatoes consensus for this horrendous film is a way too high 30%, with my rating a solid zero and a recommendation to miss this waste of 2 hours at all costs.

The new movie “Highest 2 Lowest” is the latest Spike Lee-directed movie. His last film was five years ago, “Da 5 Bloods”, released in 2020 on Netflix. This is the 5th collaboration between Spike Lee and Denzel Washington who stars in this film as a music mogul in New York City named David King, who is a major risk taker and has built a music empire that is either doing well or about to collapse from bankruptcy.

There are several speeches in this film about risk, success, and failure that are very well written, all ultimately about what is most important in life: how hard it is to succeed, and how easy it can be to lose everything are some of the best parts of this story.

There is a huge deal that David King is trying to make with this company that surprisingly turns into a kidnapping of David’s son, Trey, played by Aubrey Joseph, and a mistake by the kidnappers that adds many story twists and impossible decisions, making this movie a standout kidnapping story.

The acting is outstanding, including David King’s best friend, Paul Christopher, played by Jeffrey Wright, and his wife, Pam King, played by Ilfenesh Hadera. Former NBA player Rick Fox plays himself as a high school basketball coach, and there are several references to his time in the NBA and especially the great playoff matchups with the Boston Celtics.

The twists towards the end of this story and the ending are very well done and never predictable, with my only negative comment involving the too-long music montage fillers at certain parts of this film.

The rap star A$AP Rocky is great in his role as Yung Felon, with some of his arguments and speeches with Denzel Washington at the end of this movie performed very impressively. The singer Sunni Valentine plays an aspiring singer Julie Tucker, with her only appearance at the end of this film, with a great performance of her song “Highest to Lowest”, trying to convince David King to sign her to a music contract.

The Rotten Tomatoes consensus of 90% is correct this time. I agree with this rating and highly recommend this film.