The Battle of Shaker Heights

Director: Efram Potelle, Kyle Rankin Efram Potelle

Overview

The Battle of Shaker Heights is directed by the team of Efram Potelle and Kyle Rankin. Kelly Ernswiler (Shia LaBeouf) is a quirky 17-year-old whose greatest passion is reenacting battles from World War II. After meeting Bart Bowland (Elden Henson), someone who is nothing like him but shares his passion, Kelly ends up putting his battlefield knowledge to work in real life. The script by Erica Beeney was the winner of the second Project Greenlight competition.

Product Details

Release Date:	07/27/2021
UPC:	0191329201718
Original Release:	2003
Source:	Miramax
Language:	English
Time:	1:17:00

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Shia LaBeouf	Kelly Ernswiler
Elden Henson	Bart Bowland
Amy Smart	Tabby Bowland
Billy Kay	Lance
Kathleen Quinlan	Eve Ernswiler
Shiri Appleby	Sarah
William Sadler	Abe Ernswiler
Ray Wise	Harrison Bowland
Philipp Karner	Maurice/German Soldier
Anson Mount	Miner Weber
Dale Simonton	Todd/German Soldier
Michael McShane	Mr. Norway
Hattie Winston	Principal Holmestead
Rick Cramer	German Officer/ Mr. Thomas
France Nuyen	Xiou-Xiou Ling
Ellis E. Williams	Charlie Hayes
Kate Hendrickson	A.D.
Dana Wheeler Nicholson	Mathilde
Max Van Ville	Infantryman No. 1
Michael Reid MacKay	Skinny Guy
John Prosky	Director
Justin Thomson	Infantryman No. 2
Rachel Winfree	Angry Woman
Merritt Yohnka	Attacker No. 1
Pete Turner	Attacker No. 2

Technical Credits

Erica Beeney

Efram Potelle	Director
Kyle Rankin	Director
Erica Beeney	Screenwriter
Ben Affleck	Executive Producer
Matt Damon	Executive Producer
Rick Schwartz	Executive Producer
Joel Hatch	Executive Producer
Jeff Balis	Producer
Stacie Goodman-Binder	Casting
Tom McComas	Stunts
Joseph Middleton	Casting
Chris Moore	Producer
John Ziegler	Special Effects

Editorial Reviews

With an amiable mix of drama and comedy, this coming-of-age story has a reach that exceeds its grasp, but a winning combination of incisive scripting, economical direction, and pitch-perfect acting makes it a shelf-worthy addition to the family home video library. The second of Miramax's "Project Greenlight" movies -- the making of which are documented in an HBO series -- Battle features some of Hollywood's most talented young actors. Shia LaBeouf (Holes) stars as Kelly Ernswiler, a frighteningly smart but socially maladroit high school student with a king-size crush on Tabby Bowland (Amy Smart), the beautiful older sister of his new friend Bart (Elden Henson). Tabby loves having the adoring Kelly around, but it's Sarah (Shiri Appleby), his co-worker at a local store, who really carries the torch for him. Like most teenage boys, Kelly prefers the seemingly unattainable to the eminently winnable, hence his single-minded pursuit of Tabby. Although this basic plot is hardly new, first-time directors Efram Potelle and Kyle Rankin go out of their way to keep the film from becoming an assembly-line product; their characters have unusual traits and pastimes, for example, and their delineation of Kelly in particular is far more detailed than the plot demands. The supporting performances are uniformly excellent, with Smart rating kudos for her three-dimensional treatment of a character that could easily have been an unsympathetic caricature. Potelle and Rankin cram a little too much detail into their movie, and they're not accomplished enough to put everything over smoothly, so Battle occasionally seems jumbled and jagged. Rough edges notwithstanding, their debut effort is vastly superior to the general run of cookie-cutter teen pictures.

Barnes & Noble - Ed Hulse

Those who watched the second season of Project Greenlight will view this coming-of-age dramedy with an eye for the changes wrought by producers Chris Moore and Jeff Balis, who cut out the more saccharine moments in an attempt to save it. Those who didn't watch will just get an overwhelming sense of something missing from the truncated 79-minute Battle of Shaker Heights, the prize awarded to screenwriter Erica Beeney and directors Efram Potelle and Kyle Rankin in HBO's reality contest. What's onscreen can be funny and charming, due in large part to the talents of Shia LaBeouf, who gives an improvisational spark to Beeney's dialogue. But this can't cover up for the massive failure to complete character arcs or resolve plot threads, circumstances complicated by the directors' famous inability to stick to shooting schedules or grab enough usable footage during the brief periods their actors were available. Still, the film's most schizophrenic element was in the script all along -- LaBeouf's Kelly Ernswiler, a Character with a capital C, who's written as a mélange of quirky (and often contradictory) traits rather than a totally believable person. Although he seems the essence of a liberal free spirit, he reenacts famous military conflicts, fetishizes weapons, and drives an army jeep. He also spends too much time lamenting his participation in a harmless revenge plot against a bully who never showed him the same consideration. Without LaBeouf making him so likeable, Kelly's character deficiencies might have been even more apparent. Ultimately, The Battle of Shaker Heights shows more promise than the first Greenlight effort, Pete Jones's Stolen Summer, but also a greater sense of how amateurs can waste their opportunity.

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