Customer Reviews

Home of the Giants

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I absolutely loved this movie, I wasn't expecting much after watching the trailer but when I finally got round to seeing this, I was impressed.

The story is great, a nice twist at the end with some brilliant acting too. Ryan Merriman is fantastic as the star basketball player, Matt. He's such a believable character that you can relate to and I personally fell in love with. Haley Joel Osment is also great as his best friend who gets roped into the scheme to help Matt's brother.

I honestly enjoyed the movie and have watched it many times, I strongly recommend to get this. I have no idea what movie 'Filmgeek' was watching but looking at their other reviews they have given all but one movie 1 star. So don't pay attention to them and enjoy this movie.

Hey look! It's the Thunder Alley boy and he's a teenager trying to grow his hair long now! haha

Home of the Giants, despite being somewhat predictable (and uninspiring) in the storytelling department, isn't that bad of a drama. No, it's definitely not a comedy or one of those "feel good" family films about overcoming obstacles in a sporting event, that's for sure.

It's about a star basketball player (and his friend- the Thunder Alley boy who's name is Haley Joel Osment so you are aware I actually know the dudes name) who happens to get involved with a troubled drug addict, and all three of them eventually develop this plan to break in and rob a mans home and steal his money.

However there's a huge twist at the end that I personally admire for being completely unpredictable, but I have to take away one point because the conclusion didn't mention at least two important elements to the storyline (that I won't spoil in case you haven't seen Home of the Giants). The ending wasn't fulfilling to me.

Basicallay the storyline consists -not entirely of an important basketball game- but the teens walking around school and feeling paranoid about the house they broke into, and wondering if the guy they robbed will ever find out who did it and come and get them.

It's a pretty good movie without a lot of substance, to be honest, but good enough to be watchable.

Published in HOLLYWOOD REPORTER on Oct. 23, 2007

By Duane Byrge

Chicago International Film Festival

CHICAGO -- March Madness shows its sinister side in "Home of the Giants," a saga about Indiana state-championship basketball. The main rivalry is not on the court, but off the hardwood, as two brothers go one-on-one in a good-vs.-evil showdown. This appealing, heady independent film won audience fans here at the Chicago International Film Festival. Starring Ryan Merriman as Matt, a high-school basketball star, and Haley Joel Osment as Gar, his loyal, brainy sidekick, "Home of the Giants" is funny and gritty. With sly digs at high-school culture,

filmmaker Rusty Gorman spins a sharp morality story centered on the tribal insanity of Indiana high- school basketball.

In this sharp depiction of middle-American life, Matt is reveling in his "glory days": He's the high- school star who realizes that he'll never play at the next level. He's got a one-man entourage in his brainy friend Gar (Osment), who, both realize, will someday far outpace Matt in the game of life.

Filmmaker Rusty Gorman puts a shrewd trajectory on this jock yarn, layering the drive to the championship with some unsettling human issues. At its core, "Home of the Giants" is played out on a much larger court, and Matt's greatest challenge is to overcome the dark legacy of his older brother."Giants" is smartly shot with just the right character rotation between its two leads: As the sharp-shooting star, Merriman struts with high-school star cockiness and self- absorption, while Osment is winning as the sidekick who must assume leadership. Other players deliver solid turns: Kenneth Mitchell is riveting as Matt's bad-apple brother. Danielle Panabaker's new-girl-in- school freshness adds a perky dimension to the storyline. Writer-director Gorman shows a talent for credible character creations and a deft control of the story, no mean feat since "Giants" blends multiple narrative styles of drama, romance and comedy. Technical contributions are A-game, most prominently editor Dan Schalk's up-tempo pacing and cinematographer Rodney Taylor's on-target framings of the heartland.

See title. Enjoyable but the ending is trite and twisted in order to end happily.

Cliched and mundane in the extreme, so much so that it's no surprise this film apparently sat on the shelf for several years before finding distribution. Poorly and ham-fistedly directed, shot so badly that one must question the eyesight of the director of photography, and apparently written by some sort of automatic screenplay generating software. Even the presence of Haley can't save such a tepid exercise in mediocrity. You've seen this story in some form or another hundreds or thousands of times, usually told with some skill, but not here. Kid's older brother is in trouble for something, and his only way out is to have his younger brother (the star player on the team) take a dive and lose the game. Ugh. The writer/director is not only filmically inept, but can't seem to decide which era the film takes place -- is it contemporary, or is it the 1970s? Even if it's the latter (which it isn't, in spite of clues to the contrary) where are the players of color?

Someone thought this was a good idea somewhere along the way, but the buck fifty it cost to produce (if it was more, someone should be shot) would have been put to better use on a cheap cigar. It may burn up in minutes, but it is possible to derive some pleasure from it, unlike this "movie".