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Painter/actor/director Bouli Lanners’ third feature, The Giants, which premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, finally gets an understated bow on DVD. Described as a Huckleberry Finn style adventure about three young boys left to their own devices, such lofty literary comparisons unfortunately do Lanners’ film no favors, as this by the numbers escapade doesn’t quite manage to make an impression, despite some pristine cinematography capturing quiet countryside desolation.

Brothers Zak (Zacharie Chasseriaud) and Seth (Martin Nissen) have been abandoned by their mother and are running out of what little money she left behind for them as they stay in their late grandfather’s house in the country. The boys, aged 15 and 13, drive around the countryside, befriending another loner boy, Danny (Paul Bartel), who is often abused physically by his older brother. While Seth retains a cell phone upon which the boys’ mother periodically calls only to cruelly...

★★★☆☆ Currently gracing the silver screen with his turn as the morally dubious Martial in Jacques Audiard's powerful melodrama Rust and Bone (2012), Bouli Lanners' latest directorial outing arrives on the small screen via its DVD release. The Giants (Les Géants, 2011) is a meandering tale of one long summer in the adolescent life of three neglected boys. Surviving on the edges of society amongst the lush greenery of Belgium, this is akin to a childhood tale of summer days seen through the grittier lens of Lanners' countrymen, the Dardenne brothers, as Seth (Martin Nissen) and younger brother Zak (Zacherie Chasseriaud) spend the long vacation in the house of their late grandfather.

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