The Battle of Shaker Heights (2003)

Such a frustrating disappointment

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

I am a big fan of Shia Lebouf, mostly because we watch a lot of Disney channel at my house and enjoy his acting. I didn't see Project Greenlight for this movie, so there were absolutely no expectations.The themes of the movie were fairly simple and clear throughout the movie. The dialogue was great (witty and funny), and I think Shia Lebouf did an excellent job of portraying the struggles of a "normal" teen. We didn't get too emotionally caught up with the characters during the movie, but we did find ourselves empathizing with them. My husband thought the editing was a bit choppy, but I didn't really notice it myself.

This is an independent movie? No, it is what a studio gets when they force Hollywood ideology on an independent production. For starters, I am sick to think that this script was the best out of over 15,000 scripts that were submitted in the Project Greenlight competition. Second, the direction in the movie is far from anything gritty or original. A generic style of anything basic, Shaker Heights is more of a student film with Hollywood production value than anything gritty or truly independent. Third, the casting of this film was hit and miss. Half of the actors were excellent while the other half simply read their lines from the script and nothing else. A simple rule in movie making that this production failed to follow was the relationship of the leading role with the movie. Your leading man . woman must identify with some percentage of the audience. If nobody understand what the character is going through, they don't care. Not only does the leading character fail to progress or change as a person by the end of the movie, but the characters motivation is pointless and the audience loses interest with him before we reach the half way point. If this was a low budget and a true independent film, I could see not being so negative. But I can't. If you spend over 1 million dollars and you have professional cast and crew members working for you, it is your job to produce a good film. Shaker Heights is not a good film. My two cents.

"The Battle of Shaker Heights" focuses on a pedantic high school dweeb (LaBeouf) and his involvements with WWII reenactments, a payback prank on a bully, and, most of all, his affections for two girls. An unfortunate little coming-of-ageish flick, "Battle" is lacking in depth, homogeneity, continuity, and the breadth of things we like to see in stories, characters, and screenplays. Unoriginal, unimaginative, off target, and with too much invested in a rather annoying central character, "Battle" isn't all bad and does manage some warmth, personality, and charm though it's largely overshadowed by its many deficits. Passable stuff which will likely play best with teens. (C)

Shia can act. William Sadler can act. Kathleen Quinlan can act. Amy smart can act. Actors do what directors tell them to do, they must trust the vision of the director(s). That is where this picture went terribly wrong.I saw the 7:45 show at Denver's Chez Artist Theater. This was the last day of the run and the second to last show. There were three other people in the audience. At $8.50 a ticket that's a whopping $34 for that screening. (hardly the $20K Rick Schwartz wanted).I had read the original script and the changes made to the script. Frankly I wasn't incredibly inpressed. I watched Project Greenlight and made 2 noteworthy observations. The directors wer very petty and unprofessional. Project Greenlight seemed to be more concerned with creating drama for their reality show than they were in creating a quality film.In comparison I did watch the first season of Project Greenlight and Stolen Summer. Stolen Summer, as a finished product, was a much better movie than I expected. Shaker Heights wasn't.In the battle of Shaker Heights the character of Kelly wasn't likeable. He was a disrespectful smart ass in school. He treated his dad like a leper. The attractive girl in the supermarket that liked him he threw canned goods at. Why did she like him? Most reactions looked over acted. Characters didn't act in believeable ways. I was never pulled into the story.The opinions of the final film expressed by the producers in the final make me wonder if they have made a career of winging confidently talking out of their butts.