10 Underrated Movies for Guys
We all need some downtime now and then, so I decided to step away from the usual content and share with everyone some of my top not-so-well-known movie recommendations. No doubt some of you have seen and love some of the movies on this list. But they’ve been picked because, for whatever reason, they weren’t as well-received as they should have been. In my personal experience, many people do not know or have even heard of most of these films. That is a shame I seek to rectify here.
While none of these can be described as “Christian movies,” in the particular way our society uses that term, these are films with resonance for men who value their God-given masculinity and seek to have it strengthened, challenged and celebrated. These are movies about honor, sacrifice, manhood, leadership and loyalty. It won’t be hard for you to connect some dots.
So, I hope you find the time to dig into some of these if you haven’t already. Let me know in the comment section or send me a message if you watch one to let me know what you thought. Enjoy.
Warrior
An MMA movie that’s not really about MMA, but about the nature of family at its most toxic and fragile: fathers, sons and brothers and whether or not they can hold together in the midst of failure, abandonment, desperation and bitter resentment. There is a definitely a Rocky-esque quality to this film, but to reduce it that far would be a criminally massive overstatement. There are many layers to this one and it’s an emotionally masculine powerhouse of a film. The combat sequences are seriously shot and masterfully choreographed, as well. Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte and Joel Edgerton are all great actors who deliver in whatever film they’re in, this one just happens to be a great vehicle for all of them.
Mr. Jones
A newer release about Gareth Jones and his courageous venture to uncover the truth about the Holodomor, the man-made famine and starvation of the Ukrainian population at the hands of Stalin and the USSR. This is a film that flies in the face of the monolith of Hollywood politics (typically sympathetic to leftist/communistic ideals and overwhelmingly supportive of the journalistic profession) by showing us just how corrupt, disingenuous and dishonest the news media in this country has been for generations. The history of fascist atrocities have been well-documented in film since the war; the much grander and more murderous nature of communism has somehow managed to dodge much of the same scrutiny and subsequent labels of universal villainy. This film does a great work in telling the true story of how even the politically progressive elements of the West were forced to face the reality of what their utopian hopes and dreams had wrought on the people of Ukraine.
Sunshine
From Danny Boyle, the man responsible for films like Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, and 28 Days Later, Sunshine is a sci-fi thriller about a group of scientists in a not-too-distant future tasked with delivering a payload into the dying sun in order to restart its nuclear process and save humanity. The script, written by Alex Garland, (who has a knack for penning more serious science fiction), becomes about something more than just the immediate mission at hand, however. This film goes to great lengths to showcase the immensity and power of the universe around us and humanity’s comparatively minuscule stature. In one sense, it’s close to impossible to watch this movie and not think about God. And while I’m sure that is probably not what the filmmakers had in mind when they made it, the messages of human value and sacrifice despite our relatively microscopic standing in the divinely glorious and cosmically grand scheme of things comes through loud and clear.
Tears of the Sun
Bruce Willis leads one of Antoine Fuqua’s first movies about a Navy SEAL commander and his team who are tasked with escorting American citizens out of harm’s way in a central African nation as it erupts into civil war and genocide. His mission to extract a doctor operating a clinic in a small village hits a snag when she refuses to leave without dozens of refugees she has been treating. Against direct orders, the SEALs agree to the doctor’s terms and attempt to lead the endangered civilians through the jungle and across the border to safety, protecting them from the murderous militia hunting them down. This movie is an intense and powerfully stirring action thriller, showcasing the heroic impulse to do what’s right even when in comes at the cost of one’s own security and in defiance of authority. Its masculine, pro-American and pro-Western values also stand at odds with much of the politically correct, culturally Marxist messaging so prevalent today. (For another criminally underrated Willis action film big on themes of sacrifice and defiance, check out 16 Blocks.)
Open Range
Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall star as cowboys who get sideways with a corrupt landowner over grazing rights. The simplicity of that description, however, barely even begins to describe how this movie deals with ideas of friendship, manhood, loyalty and justice. Great westerns have a way of imbuing simple plots with deeply timeless and resonant wisdom, and Open Range is no different. Costner and Duvall both give masterfully subdued performances and the slow burn of the film toward its fateful conclusion is handled with just as much skill (Costner also directed it). When it finally gets where it’s going, you’ll be thankful you came along on the ride.
61*
Billy Crystal directs this dramatic retelling of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris’s attempt to break Babe Ruth’s home run record during the 1961 season. Not only one of the truly great baseball movies, but a film about competition, friendship and integrity in the midst of public scrutiny and unfair treatment, 61* challenges our notions of the nature of celebrity and the unjustified trust much of our society has in journalism. Many great men are not cut out to be celebrities and having what it takes to be a celebrity certainly does not make a man great. Thomas Jane and Barry Pepper are fantastic as Mantle and Maris, and the truth of the 61* story makes it that much more engrossing.
Road To Perdition
The story of a prohibition-era mobster in Chicago who goes on the run with his young son after the rest of their family is murdered by another gangster, Road To Perdition stars Tom Hanks in what has to be one of his darkest and grittiest roles. (I can’t speak with complete authority because I haven’t seen his entire body of work, but come on… gangland hitman is not exactly what you’re used to from Hanks.) Replete with themes of how our sins follow us and end up affecting those we love no matter how hard we may try to protect them, this story is an artful and stylish take on classic crime drama that features, as a side-note, one of my all-time favorite movie scores from Thomas Newman.
Hell Or High Water
If you’re not keyed into Taylor Sheridan yet, you need to be. He’s the writer of Hell Or High Water as well as Wind River, the Sicario films and the Yellowstone television series. He’s created a ridiculously impressive resume for himself in quite a short time and doesn’t seem to be able to miss on much. Hell Or High Water is essentially a modern western, featuring Chris Pine and Ben Foster as bank robbing brothers in rural Texas being pursued by lawman Jeff Bridges. The movie takes on issues of family tension, economic desperation in modern times, uneasy friendship, and what happens when reasonable people feel pushed too far. Like the other western on this list, it packs a good amount of thought food and feeling into what appears on the surface to be a rather simple concept. And the notion that some of the nobler values of the Old West may still find their way back from time to time in the modern day is a refreshing one to see played out on screen.
To End All Wars
To End All Wars chronicles the true story of POWs struggling to survive through harsh and barbaric treatment in the midst of a Japanese prison camp during World War II. Powerful themes of respect and forgiveness define this film, as the prisoners are forced to decide just how they will cope with and respond to the inhuman circumstances they are all subjected to. There is some powerfully biblical imagery in this movie as well as a sobering perspective focus on what men endured just a couple of generations ago.
The Shawshank Redemption
Labeled as “underrated” because it bombed at the box office when it was originally released, Shawshank has certainly become a kind of combination of cult classic and modern masterpiece after being pulled from its initial run in theaters. If you haven’t seen it, you are definitely missing out. Easily one of the best cinematic adaptions of a Stephen King work, it tells the story of a man’s experience in Shawshank Prison after being unjustly imprisoned for the murders of his wife and her lover. Hope and perseverance, even in the face of unjust and tyrannical authority, are what sound the loudest note here, even among a bevy of other powerfully resonant themes. This one really is a story everybody should know.
(Of course I don’t own any of the rights to the movie posters. They’re all taken from Wikipedia and belong to the movie companies that made them.)