Him vs. GOAT.

In 2022, Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie wrote a movie called GOAT. It would later be produced by Jordan Peele’s production company under the name Him. It was released to middling reviews, and I remembered that it had been on the Blacklist, so I went back and wanted to see how much had changed from script to screen. It had changed a lot.

First up, the intro. In Him, we start with a very young Cam Cade watching his father’s favorite football team, the Saviors (in a fake NFL league) win the championship under the strength of their star quarterback named Isaiah White. He’s injured on the game winning play, but he makes a comeback as we see in flashbacks that he ends up winning 8 championships total to become the all-time great. We then see Cam getting prepared for the combine as a young college star, but he’s ambushed by someone in a silly costume who busts his head open. He doesn’t perform at the combine because of the head injury and is not drafted.

In GOAT, the star quarterback is named Connor and the young QB is named Benny. Because of how this can be confusing in text, we’ll just call them by their names in the film, Isaiah and Cam. There’s a montage of both of their careers (which does include the injury to Isaiah, who plays for the Dallas Cowboys). Cam is shown winning the College Football championship and then is drafted number one by the Cowboys after they trade up with the New York Jets. Like real life, the Jets make another dumb move on draft day. Cam is very concerned about how Isaiah is going to take this, asking Jerry Jones about it.

In the film, Cam is invited to Isaiah’s compound to train as a ‘second chance’ opportunity. He wasn’t drafted and this is a way to make his dreams still happen. He’s asked by his agent on the phone at a party and Cam is all in, as is his family. In GOAT, Isaiah calls him directly and asks him to come to the compound to compete for the job. Cam’s mother doesn’t think it’s a good idea and calls it a trap, urging him not to go.

In Him, as Cam is being driven to the desert compound, a group of insane fans(?) slam on the car and startle him. The woman who does this is seen later on. Once settled in, we get a title screen: Day 1: Fun. Side note, I liked the look of the title screens quite a bit. In GOAT, there are no insane people but the driver is gripping a rosary and talking to himself. As they get to the compound, there’s a Day 1 title card without a subtitle. The driver leaves, muttering “I’ll never see you again.” as he leaves.

In Him, after getting settled, Isaiah and Cam go on a run - Cam can’t keep up in the desert. He throws up and collapses. Isaiah comes over to help him up and then we cut to the training area where he’s getting oxygen. In GOAT, the two go on a run and Cam keeps up the whole time, even dusting him at the home stretch as Isaiah cheers him on. Cam gets to the edge of the pool, while Isaiah runs past him, jumps into the pool, and then jumps out (weight vest still on) landing on his feet from the pool to the edge of the pool. The script also makes a point that there are no doors on rooms because they get in the way. When he meets the trainer there’s no awkwardness and Cam isn’t forced to strip. Cam and Isaiah then do a bunch of normal (but intense) football drills, like using resistance band and dodging tennis balls. At one point, Cam sees his sink full of blood but when he questions Isaiah about it, he seems confused and says he’ll get it cleaned up.

They continue training - this time it’s weight training. Again, intense, but fairly normal. Isaiah is seen on the phone with some advertisers going over a clothing line. In the film, Isaiah’s wife(?) is doing some kind of product video. She’s not in the script yet. After dinner, they race up and down bleacher steps that are built to the exact specifications of Isaiah’s high school bleachers. During the activity, Cam stumbles, bashes his head, but continues to try to run while concussed and bleeding. Isaiah stops him and gets the trainer. At night, Cam tries to use the sink but it’s clogged with blood. He goes outside to get some air and there’s a bighorn sheep that’s disemboweled another sheep. Back in the house, he hears screaming and sees a shadow - he runs through the hall and almost knocks over Isaiah, who assures him he didn’t hear anything and that he’s just had a rough day.

On day 2, it starts similarly to day 1 - they run, they eat breakfast and they get massaged. In Him, Cam is forced to give his phone up when he gets there. In GOAT, he has his phone but no service. He asks about WiFi but the trainer, Marco, tells him that everything is hardwired, but there’s a phone in the library. He then leans down under the table and warns him not to use the phone because “someone’s always listening”. He continues by saying, “It’s not safe for you here. Connor (Isaiah) is not what you think.” He works out again, eats with Isaiah, and then calls his agent from the library. While he doesn’t say anything risky, he does leave paranoid someone was listening.

I should also mention that on Day 2 in Him, some undrafted players come for a “scrimmage” and it ends up being a horrific scene (and one of my favorites in the film) where a guy gets pummeled in the face with an auto-ball thrower. In GOAT, Isaiah tells him he’s expecting some friends on Friday to play because they want to see what he’s made of.

During the weight training session, Isaiah is spotting Cam while he’s lifting and he starts pushing the bar down. There’s a sort of tug-of-war with Cam eventually losing. Isaiah stops the bar from crushing him and Cam is visibly upset with the scenario.

The rest of the script is basically all different so I won’t refer to it much anymore. In GOAT, at the end of day 2, Cam goes on a helicopter to Vegas with Marco and the other trainer, Jan. He warns Cam not to say anything in front of Jan, and shares a cryptic message saying he’s “passed”, and that he should just do his training and he’ll be fine. At a club, Cam keeps seeing the face of a younger Isaiah in the crowd, and then when Marco goes on to the dance floor, the young Isaiah cuts his throat. When Cam tries to get to Marco, he realizes nothing is there and no one is dead. He goes to a casino bathroom and tries to call his agent which gets him nowhere. He’s on the phone with his mom when Jan walks in and tells him to come back to the chopper. He’s worried about Marco, but Jan assures him that he’s fine. Cam gets back to the house at 3am and he stumbles upon Isaiah sitting in a room with game tape paused on a monitor. He catches Isaiah mid-FaceTime with his son and he apologizes for missing his birthday, then goes back to watching game tape.

On Day 3, Isaiah reveals that he’s the one who wanted Jerry Jones to draft him and successfully talks Cam out of leaving. He also tells Cam that it’s a mental health day and to get some hiking in because Isaiah’s wife is going to join them for dinner. Cam hikes up into the hills and sees a white chapel in the middle of nowhere. He enters and finds that it’s completely covered with pictures and articles of Isaiah. There’s a thump on the roof and Cam takes off, not seeing that the back of the doors were covered with pictures of him…including one of him sleeping in Isaiah’s house.

Elsie, Isaiah’s wife, comes to the house by chopper. She immediately takes Cam down to the lower level to play a game of tennis (it’s revealed she was a pro tennis player at one time). She smokes him and then takes him through the house a bit - the kitchen, the security room (in which he sees hundreds of camera screens), and then a room where there’s a pole for dancing. She begins dancing with him and beneath the loud music, she tells him to keep smiling because he’s watching them and not to walk away from the training. She then whispers, “I fucking hate Isaiah more than anything on Earth, and I want you to take away the only thing he really loves.” She leaves the same night.

Cam has a dream where he goes to the chapel and sees the young Isaiah gurgling blood, asking for help. During training that day, he tells Isaiah that he’s going to lead the run and he leads Isaiah to the chapel. After busting the door down, the chapel is cleaned out - everything is empty. Cam blames Isaiah for emptying it, Isaiah keeps telling him that it must be his concussion making him think he saw things he really didn’t.

In the training room, there’s a new trainer named Joshua. When Cam asks where Marco is, Isaiah and Jan pass it off - “he needed a break”. Cam loses it on Isaiah and the two have a big fight, a tussle that ends when Isaiah has his hand mangled in a weight machine…his career almost certainly over because of the injury. That is, until he sees him the next day and his hand is completely healed. He asks Cam if he wants to know how it’s possible, and Cam agrees. He tells Cam to finish the day and then he’ll tell him.

A helicopter arrives and it’s a full 20 man squad. The lights turn on on the outdoor field and they’re going to play a friendly two hand touch scrimmage game. As you might expect, the game turns less than friendly and after a shootout and many dust ups, on the final play of the game, Cam scores the winning touchdown with no time left and breaks his throwing arm while doing it. On the helicopter, Isaiah asks him if he wants to go to the hospital or the chapel, and Cam tells him the chapel.

In the chapel, Isaiah explains that he made a deal his second year in Dallas and we’re introduced to “Connor’s Curse”, a figure with long black fingernails. He continues, “It allowed me, with certain stipulations, to always be at my best. To train as hard as I needed without fear. It allowed me to become everything you’ve seen. But I could never stop until someone made the same choice. It means having no balance in life. it means this is your religion, and you are its zealot. It means whatever illusions you have about family, friends…but I’m an old man now, and this isn’t a choice for old men to make.” The second figure appears to be Cam’s Curse. Cam is given the choice to leave there but instead, he chooses NFL greatness.

In the final scene, Isaiah, now twenty pounds heavier and happier than he’s ever been, enjoys pizza for the first time in twenty years. He stares at the TV watching Cam, the Dallas Cowboys QB, sit stoically on the bench, waiting for his defense to come off of the field.

The script for GOAT is much better than the final product I saw on screen. GOAT has a much clearer theme - will you give up what it costs for greatness as an athlete. I think Him tries to make that point along with bringing in parallels of football as a religion, and none of it works. GOAT also shines with a surviving goat motif throughout featuring the one horned goat from the beginning of the script. Also, the third act of GOAT clearly brings everything together while the third act of Him feels like a complete mess. It’s certainly not a complete dud - the direction is solid, there are some stunning visual moments and Marlon Wayans is incredible, but overall I would have loved to see GOAT filmed as written.