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Eastern Boys Movie Review

Eastern Boys is a 2013 French drama film directed by Robin Campillo and starring Olivier Rabourdin. It’s a highly implausible, but entertaining flick.

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“My real name is Rouslan“

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A middle-aged Frenchman solicits a young Ukrainian man who agrees to meet him at his home the following day. What then happens is very difficult to believe. They ransack his apartment, rob him blind, and then that Ukrainian boy arrives again and the two start a sexual relationship that quickly becomes something more.

There are so many questions that I asked and never got the answer to during that first act that was fun, memorable and interesting, but a giant plot hole it remained. Why would this naïve man let this happen? Why would he then let that boy into his apartment after what happened to him? And why would he become so obsessed with a boy from a dangerous gang?

But when you brush aside those numerous plot holes, what you get is still an effective, intense drama that becomes a full-on thriller in its exciting third act while in the second act it resembles a gay romance. It’s a genre-bender that doesn’t quite work, but the ambition and originality are both admirable here.

Exploring immigration and gang dynamic, Eastern Boys depicts just how broken these young immigrants are and how difficult and almost impossible it is for them to adapt into their new surroundings. That level of disconnect was evident in every single frame of the movie. I appreciated this highly honest depiction of these immigrants as the director does not flinch away from portraying the worst things that can happen in these often violent communities.

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I did have a problem, though, with the empathetic depiction of even the worst criminal that is the boss character here, but that is to be expected from a modern European film. Having all these different perspectives did make for an ambitious, layered story, however, and the standouts are the main two characters. Both actors delivered strong performances and the central daddy-son relationship is complex in the psychology and darker implications behind it, but Daniel was still left underdeveloped as we never really get acquainted with the deeply rooted issues that he most certainly harbors.