 Greatest
Guy Movies of All-Time: Guy
movies often feature contests (conflicts or games), hot cars and women,
road trips, sexual initiations, male bonding and buddies, profanities
and obscenities, and excessive action fight-explosion sequences.
They usually include lavish doses of brutality, ultra- or cartoonish
violence, various vulgarities, competitiveness, races, blunt humor,
trite dialogue, and scenes with naked males and females. The themes
and content of these time-wasting, 'macho' or 'guys' films appeal
most to male audiences.
The three most common areas included in male-oriented flicks are:
- sophomoric humor and raunchy dialogue (with mean-spirited
putdowns, body-related comedy, profanities, and obscenities)
- various bloody, kick-ass, violent
fight sequences - often explosively lethal with high body counts
- scenes of female conquest (with accompanying gratuitous nudity and
sex)
Testosterone-boosting
guy films often require the male viewer to leave his brain at the door
in order to enjoy the fast-cut, inflated action - often devoid of character
development and richly-nuanced dialogue.
Film genres (or sub-genres) most associated with 'guy'
movies include action films, crime/gangster
films, sports films, war
films, and westerns plus
an occasional comedy or raunchy teen film (Blazing
Saddles (1974) and Caddyshack (1980), for instance).
See below. Most of the guy films included here are not worthy of
much critical praise, although some exceptions include Cool
Hand Luke (1967),  The
Godfather films, and Apocalypse
Now (1979).
The heroes (or anti-heroes) of these films, predominantly with male casts and protagonists, were often loners or mavericks, destined to be unapologetic about their behavior. Male stars most often associated with 'guy' films include Paul Newman, Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, Robert De Niro, Clint Eastwood, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Steve McQueen, Al Pacino, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Sylvester Stallone, among others -- who were often cast in the roles of sports athletes, martial arts experts, secret intelligence agency operatives or spies, policemen, detectives, enforcers, or mobsters/gangsters/criminals. Various directors of 'guy' films often show up multiple times, such as Quentin Tarantino, Rob Cohen, Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer (producer). |
Major Types of Guy-Movies
What are the more common types of 'guy films' that
most movie-goers would agree upon?
(1) action-related, (2) crime/gangster,
(3) sports, (4) war, (5) westerns, and (6) various comedies.
Action-Related (often Secret Agent or Martial-Arts):
Examples: Every film with: James
Bond, Jason Bourne, Jack Ryan, Lethal Weapon's Gibson, Die
Hard's Willis, the Terminator's, Predator's and Commando's Schwarzenegger, Cruise's Mission
Impossible films, Michael Caine's Harry Palmer, Jackie
Chan, Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Segal, Stallone's Rambo,
Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill and others, Mel Gibson's Mad
Max/Road Warrior films, Robocop, Shaft and Billy Jack
films, Deliverance, the Fast and Furious and Bad Boys
films, Blade, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Hard Boiled.
Features: High-tech devices, gadgets, secret missions, fast
and expensive cars, adrenaline rushes, fiery crashes and explosions,
undercover intrigue, double-agents and traitorous betrayals, bloody violence,
acrobatic hand-to-hand combat and kung-fu, feats of strength, amazing
set-pieces, vigilantism, killing machines, races against time, villainous
bad guys, cyborgs, seductively-named curvaceous females and steamy sex
or nude scenes.
Crime/Gangster:
Examples: The Godfather films, and especially the collection
of Martin Scorsese films (Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, GoodFellas,
Casino, and The Departed), Point Blank, Dirty Harry films,
Bullitt, The French Connection, Shaft, Scarface, Reservoir Dogs, Charles
Bronson's vigilante films, The Untouchables, Natural Born Killers,
Pulp Fiction, Heat, Leon/The Professional, Se7en, The Usual Suspects,
L.A. Confidential, Fight Club, Ronin, Point Break, Sin City, Ocean's
Eleven films, Crank, and Snatch.
Features: Organized crime, mobsters, ugly violence/retribution,
drug dealing, gambling, heists and capers, cons and scams, rise and
fall stories, tough guys, hired hit men-killers, corruption, cover-ups,
double-crosses, crime investigations, bloodbaths, vendettas, whacking
and executions.
Sports:
Examples: The Longest Yard, North Dallas Forty, Semi-Tough,
Remember the Titans, Any Given Sunday, The Replacements, and Friday
Night Lights (football), Slap Shot (hockey), Bull Durham,
The Natural and Major League (baseball), the Rocky films and Raging
Bull (boxing),
Rollerball (roller-blading), and Hoosiers (basketball).
Features: Violence in the sports arena or stadium, sparring
rivals, (often) true life athletes, male bonding and friendship, competitiveness,
training and coaching, drinking/carousing, sex, will-power to win,
reconciliation, the triumph of down-on-their-luck underdogs against
amazing odds, obsessive quests and downfalls.
War:
Examples: From Here to Eternity, The Great Escape, The Big
Red One, The Dirty Dozen, Patton, The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now,
Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, 300.
Features: Fighting for one's country, devotion and honor,
self-sacrifice, male bonding, survival, war as entertainment, propaganda,
espionage, POWs, escape films, boot camp training and preparations
for combat, war is hell.
Westerns:
Examples: Red River, Sergio Leone's 'spaghetti'-westerns, Once
Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Professionals,
John Wayne (Stagecoach, The Searchers, True Grit) and Clint
Eastwood (High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Unforgiven),
John Ford westerns, The Wild Bunch.
Features: The gritty frontier of the Wild West, rugged heroes
and bandits, saloons, horses, Native-Americans and social injustices,
outlaws and bad guys in black, righting wrongs and revenge, male bondings,
lawmen/sheriffs, gunfights and shoot-outs.
Various Comedies (often R-rated with Vulgar, Gross-Out Elements):
Examples: Pink Flamingos, Blazing Saddles, National Lampoon's
Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Caddyshack, Stripes, Diner, Porky's,
48 Hrs., Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Bachelor Party, Police Academy
and Naked Gun films, Beverly Hills Cop films, Ferris
Bueller's Day Off, innumerable teen sex comedies, Monty Python
films, Dazed and Confused, Clerks, Dumb & Dumber, Swingers, all
the National Lampoon and American
Pie films, Showgirls, The Big Lebowski, There's Something About
Mary, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Borat, SuperBad, Knocked Up, Old School,
Wedding Crashers, The Hangover.
Features: Coming-of-age and rites of passage, low-brow body
humor (toilet-gags, gastronomical problems), losing one's virginity,
romantic pursuit, growing up pains, multiple partners, partying, friendship
issues, flirtatious behaviors, trashy subjects, bedroom farces, situational
comedy, teen sex, embarrassing predicaments, male bonding, romantic
triangles, sexual identity and gays/lesbians, gratuitous sex and nudity. |
