Watching THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS after faithfully consuming all thirteen episodes of PROJECT GREENLIGHT that chronicled the making of the film, I had as many thoughts about the television show as I did about the movie.  Therefore, I’ll review the movie strictly on its own merits, then after Patty has had her say, I’ll return with a few observations of PROJECT GREENLIGHT.

Summary:

Seventeen year old Kelly Ernswiler (Shia LaBeouf) is a loner whose only real passion is to spend his weekends reenacting famous battles from World War II.  At one such event, he meets and befriends Bart Bowland, a Shaker Heights blue blood.  This leads to his introduction to Bart’s twenty-three year old sister, Tabby (Amy Smart), which rocks Kelly’s world.

Steve says:

THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS, as rendered on screen, is a light soufflé that, thanks to its ham-fisted directors, falls flat.  Erica Beeny’s prize-winning script had quite a bit more heft to it, deftly balancing comedy and drama in the telling of one boy’s alienation from both peers and family.  But, as viewers of PROJECT GREENLIGHT know, directors Kyle Rankin and Efram Potelle laid the melodrama on with a trowel, to the extent that the tonal shifts in the film were impossible for an audience to follow.  Having cut the material to the bone in favor of the more comedic elements, the directors (and studio) have given Beeny’s story and characters short shrift. 

In Kelly Ernswiler, Beeny created an appealing and charismatic character that teen actor Shia LaBeouf (HOLES) was born to play.   Indeed, LaBeouf’s performance remains the only real reason to pay money to see THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS, for what is left on screen is a mere promise of the touching coming of age story that Beeny wrote.  The movie charges through the tale at breakneck speed, ignoring such niceties as character development and believable story-telling.  Entire shifts in attitude take place off camera, leaving us to wonder how the characters got from point A to point C without seeming to pass through point B.

Amy Smart is fetching as Tabby, possessing just enough of that icy Uma Thurman kind of beauty to make Kelly’s instant infatuation totally believable.

Elden Henson never quite sells us on why his yuppie-in-training character is drawn to Kelly, much less why the iconoclastic Kelly would find him interesting even for a nanosecond.  Compared to the luminous LaBeouf, Henson is a bland, white bread actor who brings nothing interesting to the party.  A great deal of the script’s believability hinges on the audience buying into this unlikely pairing and frankly, I was stopped at every turn by the total lack of chemistry between the two actors. 

William Sadler, as viewers of the television show know, wasn’t cast until the first day one of his scenes was to be shot.  Perhaps this is the reason that he seems disconnected from the other actors in the story, as though he is performing in someone else’s movie.

If you followed every episode of PROJECT GREENLIGHT, then THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS is probably required viewing, since it is the de facto final episode of the season.  But, Shia LaBeouf aside, there is little other reason to do anything but wait until THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS hits cable.  It’s not a bad movie.  It’s just not a very good one.


A three-kernel rating tells the tale for this one.

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Patty says:

Steve you are far too generous.  I didn’t read the script prior to the airing of the TV series, so I’ll take your word for it that the story was better told on paper than on the big screen.  Regardless, Beeney’s voice comes through in Kelly’s dialogue throughout the film.  If we had heard more of her voice and less of the somewhat disparate vision of the two directors, I think they would have had a better movie.  Beeney knows the stuff of which slightly eccentric, bright, angry kids are made.  She created a character in Kelly who could have carried the film had there been the slightest trend toward cohesiveness in character development and plot.  Instead, what you got was a hastily edited series of scenes where the characters mingle on screen without ever connecting.  It reminded me of the dates I had in my freshman year of high school.  There was lots of dirty dancing, but we didn’t quite know what to say to one another while we waited for my mom to pick me up.  

William Sadler and Kathleen Quinlan were in the mix, but we really never knew why.  It’s as though somebody said, “Hey, Kelly ought to have parents so that the audience will understand why he’s so pissed off.”  So, they wrote in two parents who barely interact with each other, much less their son; they connect just enough bring any tonality to their relationship, then “poof” they are gone. 

It wasn’t just Elden Henson’s acting that made the Bart Bowland part so uninteresting. The real problems was that we just never see the two guys having any fun that would induce them to bond.  

Amy Smart’s performance was flat and uninspired, but maybe she didn’t get why her character was in the film either.

The single redemption of THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS is the performance of Shia LaBeouf.  It’s like being in church and suffering through the first half-hour of a particularly boring sermon before remembering that there are card games on your cell phone.  This kid virtually lights up the screen with presence.  He’s going to be one to watch.

The film lacks grounding.  It should have been a sweet little coming of age film that somehow got morphed into something pretentious and far outside of its mission. 

We got a chance to meet the directors, Efram Potelle and Kyle Rankin after the film.  They fielded questions from the audience and were quite personable, coming off far less affected than the PROJECT GREENLIGHT spin would have us believe.  I don’t think that they were prepared for the reality of time limitations on production and it seems as thought they expected Erica Beeney to hand off her screenplay and sail into the sunset. 

I hope that they do this again next year and that they pair a more artistically compatible writer and director.  THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS would have probably been a better film had they allowed Erica Beeney to direct it.  She couldn’t have screwed it up as much as Potelle and Rankin did.

Two kernels.  For those who are interested in the behind the scenes of movie making and dutifully watched PROJECT GREENLIGHT, go see the film.  You’ll be disappointed in the product, but it will support young writers and directors in the long run.

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Steve on Project Greenlight

For both of its seasons, PROJECT GREENLIGHT has been one of those must-Tivo shows that Patty and I watch faithfully.  It is, in fact, the only show in the so-called “reality” genre that is allowed on our television screen. 

In its first year, we watched as hapless (and only marginally talented) writer/director Pete Jones sank in a quagmire of his own inexperience, ego and inability to adapt.  His resulting film, STOLEN SUMMER, was a leaden and unappealing mess of a movie that disappeared from screens after two weeks.  (See the review in our archives).

This year, presumably because Jones so badly botched the direction of his project, the GREENLIGHT honchos, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Chris Moore, decided to have separate contests for writers and directors.

One of the directing finalists, Jessica Landaw, made the astonishingly gutsy move of telling the GREENLIGHT judges that she wasn’t interested in directing anything except THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS.  So strong was her passion for the material that she didn’t wish to be considered should any of the other finalists’ scripts win the contest.   

As I watched Rankin and Potelle’s version of THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS unspooling on the big screen, I couldn’t help but wonder if Ms. Landaw wouldn’t have directed a very different and much better movie.  I tend to think she would have.  It was clear from her own winning short film and her strong affection for Erica Beeny’s script that Ms. Landaw would have found the delicate balance between comedy and drama that the tale demanded.  Yes, it would have been a better movie.  But would this season’s PROJECT GREENLIGHT episodes have been nearly as compelling?  Can you imagine sitting through thirteen episodes of Landaw deftly bringing Beeny’s characters to life and the subsequent outpouring of support and affection that would have passed between writer and director?  Picture, if you will, Chris Moore visiting the set, only to find that another wonderful day’s worth of shooting had been done and that a masterpiece was in the works.  He would have shrugged, said something like, “Well, nothing here for me to do,” and left.  Compelling television?  I think not.

All of which begs the question: Since Miramax is producing both a television series and a film, are decisions being made for the benefit and facilitation of the movie or the television show?  Oh, I’m certain that the ideal for Miramax would be a great TV show that gives birth to a wonderful movie.  But it seems that, all too often, the movie and the television show are at cross purposes with each other. 

Let’s do a little math, shall we?  What does Miramax have invested in the movie?  A million-dollar budget, plus prints and advertising.  Since this is only a ten-city release, those costs are relatively negligible.  Now what’s at stake on the television side?  Twenty-six episodes (so far) of a hit series for HBO, plus ancillary releases for foreign markets and home video.  There are millions of dollars riding on the success of the television show.  So – where do you think Miramax’s loyalties lie?

PROJECT GREENLIGHT likes to pretend that the success or failure of its movies is an indicator of whether or not the television series will be allowed to continue.  I no longer believe this.  I think fate of the PROJECT GREENLIGHT movie is secondary to the longevity of the HBO series.  As long as it continues to be a viable and successful television project, the movie is almost a write-off.  Given that reality, it would seem that any young filmmakers participating in the program would start off with two strikes against them, regardless of their abilities or their lack of them.

I’ll continue to watch future seasons of PROJECT GREENLIGHT, but with a much more jaundiced eye and a much lower set of expectations for the resulting film.  Too bad.  It seemed like a really good idea.

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