Guy movies emphasize adrenaline, antiheroes

It's a fact of life: There are guy movies and girl movies.

Now, it is understood that there are women out there who dig (or claim to dig) The Dirty Dozen, just as there are men who love (or pretend to love) Hope Floats. But, painting with a broad brush, many movies are made with one or the other gender in mind. This week, I'd like to spotlight five films that women loathe and men love. In the interest of fair play, I'll examine the opposite side of this coin next week:

The Longest Yard (1974): An unlikely combination of foul-mouthed humor and shocking brutality, this movie about an inmate-vs.-guards football game is often written off as low comedy. In truth it's more complex, a meditation on hopeless battles and the impetus to fight them. Still, subtext or no, it always appeals to the inner caveman.

The Wild Bunch (1969): This revisionist Western from Sam Peckinpah still has the power to shock. Willfully violent, the all-man movie about outlaws at the end of their careers is an American classic built with the male psyche in mind.

Kingpin (1996): I find the concept of a one-handed bowler and his Amish protege hysterical. The women I have screened this for, however, find the base humor, foul language and vague, episodic plot irritating at best and offensive at worst. It's a mystery to me.

First Blood (1982): Before the character of John Rambo became a gun-toting jingoist cliché, he was a mighty interesting and, yes, layered character. Equal parts action and introspection, First Blood confronts the lasting effects of Vietnam and infuses one soldier's war against injustice with a brawny dose of adrenaline. Guys love stuff like that.

Scarface (1983): An over-the-top update of the 1932 Paul Muni gangster vehicle, Scarface relocates the action to Miami and makes its violent antihero a Cuban emigre making millions in the drug trade. One of actor Al Pacino's more interesting portrayals, his Tony Montana is not a good man. Quite the contrary. But he is a believable man who, perhaps because of charisma, you can't help rooting for, if just a little. Well, if you're a guy, anyway.

Reach Steven Uhles at (706) 823-3626or steven.uhles@augustachronicle.com.