THERE’S films for girls and weaklings, then there are films for alphas. If you’ve not watched all of these then you’re not one:
John Wick
Beta males watch Joe Wicks; alpha males watch his stabbier, fightier, hired killer namesake murder his way through New York surviving several fatal wounds by gritting his teeth. Joe Wicks doing the same would be a treat, though.
Taken
Taken’s Liam Neeson famously has a very particular set of skills. Alpha males lull themselves to sleep thinking of what their particular set of skills are. Revving their engines and pumping out dance music while driving through built-up areas late on a weekday evening must be high on the list.
Saw
Horror porn is a big feature of an alpha male’s cinema consumption, and the gore doesn’t come more gratuitous than in Saw. Sawing off your own limb to escape from a trap? ‘Nowt mate’, claims the alpha to an audience that would happily sever their own ears to stop him talking about Saw.
Jaws
A true alpha would have sorted that shark in less than a minute with a good solid punch in the conker. Any animal’s respect can be won with a sharp jab to the beak: rabid dogs, killer crocodiles, boa constrictors, people who look at their girlfriends, Remoaners, lefties, vegetarians.
Any Fast & Furious film with the Rock and Statham
The early Fast & Furious films only feature one musclebound baldie who believes acting is for cowards. True alphas reserve their admiration for the later movies, which have three. They drive home from the cinema in their VW Golf full of McDonald’s boxes and Costa cups knowing they could jump it off the dual carriageway flyover any time.
Fight Club
The first rule of being an alpha male is to talk about Fight Club. The second rule is to continue talking about Fight Club when everyone changes the subject. The third rule is to not really get the whole self-defeating anti-materialist subtext.
Raging Bull
As highbrow as it gets for an alpha male, directed by Scorsese, filmed in black and white, it’s the equivalent of an Ingmar Bergman festival at a wanky independent cinema. But with boxing instead of chess and rather than Max Von Sydow battling Death, it’s De Niro battling weight gain.
