Other reviewers compare this film to "Brassed Off" and "The Full Monty," but to me, it brought memories of working class dramas of FDR's time, specifically "Slim" (1937) and "Manpower" (1941), both about men working on high lines. Herewith my edited summary of "Slim": "Farmer joins a group of workers who are building power lines. Foreman teaches him all he needs and soon they become friends. They visit the Foreman's girl friend, who also falls in love with the Farmer. They go on a dangerous job, working next to 88,000 volt power line means taking a deadly risk." Now what happens in "Giants": A Climber joins a group of workers who are painting power lines. Foreman teaches Climber all she needs and soon they become lovers. The Foreman's roommate also falls in love with the Climber. They go on a dangerous job, working next to a high-volt power line that suddenly is turned on.The main difference is that the newcomer in "Giants" is a woman. This is even conceivable in a 1930's film…if the woman disguised herself as a man. The workers' profanity and sexual couplings are elements you never would have witnessed back then, but the group singing is a throwback. Also, the outcome is the opposite of a 30's happy ending.

Billed as a kind of sequel to The Full Monty, about unemployed men in Sheffield, this movie is a fake.As someone born in Sheffield, and still with links to the city, I was extremely disappointed by this film. Someone said it could have been set in Oklahoma, and that just about sums it up for me. This looked like a romantic view of northern England made for the US market. Probably many Americans - and many southern English people - don't realize that Sheffield is a big city of around half a million inhabitants, with a sophisticated urban culture. In Among Giants it was depicted as some dreary dead-end semi-rural small town, where everyone in Sheffield seemed to drink in the same old-fashioned pub, and where the people's idea of a party was line-dancing in some village-hall lookalike. This was a small close-knit community, not a metropolitan city.The working-class Sheffield men were totally unlike their real-life counterparts, who are generally taciturn and communicate with each other in grunts and brief dry remarks. They don't chatter, and they certainly don't sing in choirs.Even the rural settings, supposedly in the Peak District, looked alien to me. I recognized a few places where I used to go hiking, but some of the aerial shots of pylons stretching out over a bleak landscape reminded me more of Wales. Indeed, in the credits at the end I spotted a reference to Gwynedd, Wales. The Peak District is, in the summer, crawling with walkers and tourists in cars. It is situated between two big cities. It is not some kind of wilderness.As for the notion that a young woman could fall in love with, and lust after, Pete Postlethwaite, that was ludicrous, and could only have been a male dream. Her reasons for becoming his lover were never made apparent. None of the men was shown as having a partner or families; they existed in a vacuum.Anyone wanting to see a film about unemployed Sheffielders would have been led astray. This Sheffield existed only in the minds of its middle-class writers and film-makers.It was a gigantic fake!

Ray is the foreman of a crew working for the electricity board on an informal, cash in hand basis. They have a few months to paint a 15 mile row of electricity pylons. Into this mix comes Australian back packer Gerry who joins the crew for some work. Ray and the much younger Gerry start to fall for each other as they work causing splits and disharmony within the crew.I vaguely remember hearing reviews of this film when it was released but it didn't do well and was hardly in the cinemas for a week before it vanished. It popped up recently on TV and I gave it a go despite not hearing much good about it. It is actually not that bad but it is a long way short of The Full Monty.The film seems to want to have some sort of gritty social dimension about it but this is no Ken Loach film and it doesn't come off. I didn't get any wider point about the class of these men that ran through the story. The serious side to the work that comes in later is not as strong as it needs to be and didn't carry enough weight. The main thing here is the confused romance between Ray and Gerry that didn't quite come off. The reasons for the difficulties in the relationship are not totally clear and the way it goes is not convincing, rather a bit dull and pedestrian. It has it's moments of potential beauty such as the cooling tower scene and tender moments between the pair, but these don't come off as well as they should.I found this to be partly the fault of the cast. Postlethwaite is a reasonably good actor and Griffiths can be very good (check out HBO's 6ft Under) but they lack a real sense of chemistry that was needed to be realistic. The crew are all pretty good despite having not well formed characters. Postlethwaite needed to be stronger but he is a little lo-key when really he should have commanded the screen more, although his tact does work in the quiet moments.The direction is good and Miller seems to like the wide Northern landscapes with all his swirling helicopter shots and fancy shots through the pylon structures. Add to this the haunting score and the film has a sort of other-worldly feel to it that the material can make good on. Maybe I just didn't get it and others may find this to be very touching, however I must admit that I never got emotionally involved in any of it and it left me feeling a bit dry more than anything else. It may have had potential on paper but on the screen it goes for a big drama but fails to satisfactorily deliver.

When two of the best English actors working today are in the same film it is time to prick up your ears. Postelthwaite and Griffiths are casually superb in this film. "Among Giants" will stay with you - it is quirky and gritty and the visuals are haunting. The lives of these working class characters display dignity in obscurity. If you let the film take its meandering time you will grow to care about each character, and not just the superb leads. It is a wonder some films are ever made - not that they are not cookie cutter Hollywood retreads, but that there is still an audience for small films. Video has ironically been the savior of film.