'Shaker Heights' not funny or dramatic

Friday, October 03, 2003

By Rob Owen, Post-Gazette Tv Editor

Taking "The Battle of Shaker Heights" as just a movie, it's a simplistic 77-minute story told rather incompetently. Motivations for the characters are negligible, and the whole thing wraps up in a smiley-faced whirlwind that gives the audience whiplash.

	'THE BATTLE OF SHAKER HEIGHTS' RATING: PG-13 for mild profanity STARRING: Shia LaBeouf, Amy Smart DIRECTOR: Efram Potelle and Kyle Rankin

But seen through the lens of HBO's "Project Greenlight" -- a summer cable series that chronicled the selection of the script and the film's directors through an online contest and showed the chaos of making the movie -- "Shaker Heights" is something more and less at the same time. It's still the same slim, unexceptional film, but having seen "Project Greenlight," you at least understand why it may have turned out this way.

"Greenlight" viewers saw Miramax executives dictating to the filmmakers what type of film it should be after filming was complete. Never mind that they didn't have the footage to make "Shaker Heights" more of a comedy than the coming-of-age drama it was intended to be from the get-go. The suits wanted a comedy, so that's what "Shaker Heights" tries to be.

But as its final cut reveals, the film is not funny enough to be a comedy and not dramatic enough to be much of anything else. It just sort of sits there, an inert lump of filmmaking with some winning performances and a few nice moments, but not much in the way of a spine to hang it all on.

Shia LaBeouf ("Holes") stars as Kelly Ernswiler, a high school senior living in suburban Cleveland with his recovering drug addict dad (William Sadler) and artist mom (Kathleen Quinlan). Kelly works at a grocery store with platonic friend Sarah (Shiri Appleby) and re-enacts World War II battles on weekends.

He's a smart kid who knows he's smart, and he's unafraid of showing it. He's also a smart aleck with a chip on his shoulder, still angry at his father for being addicted to drugs and unable to provide for the family.

"I've been straight for five years, almost six," his father says. "A third of your life."

"Big deal," Kelly replies. "I've been straight the whole time."

Kelly's life begins to change after he meets Bart (Elden Henson), a fellow re-enactor from a wealthy family. Kelly also takes an interest in Bart's sister, Tabby (Amy Smart).

Directed by Efram Potelle and Kyle Rankin from a script by Erica Beeney, "Shaker Heights" doesn't have a particularly interesting -- or even describable -- visual look, and the script veers wildly from effective character moments and smart dialogue to hopeless cliches ("I never met a rule I didn't want to break," Kelly says).

The film's fatal flaw is a lack of understanding about Kelly's character. LaBeouf is charismatic and easily carries the picture, but the audience gets only glimpses of the cause of Kelly's anger. And then he gets over it for no particularly good reason.

No doubt, there's more to the story than what is in the film, given the frantic last-minute editing that eliminated dramatic moments in favor of bumping up the comedy. Perhaps on DVD, "Project Greenlight" fans will get the opportunity to see "Shaker Heights" as its makers envisioned.

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