The Battle of Shaker Heights

The Battle of Shaker Heights (2003)

Ahh, the creation of Shia LeBeouf as the lead in a movie. It’s too bad he couldn’t have had more to work with. To start off, this was made for the second season of Project Greenlight (Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Chris Moore) and the movie was not as good as the HBO series about the filming of it. Greenlight is an interesting concept and really tried to give new artists a forum, but has failed miserably. 

The movie never decides if it want to be a comedy or a drama and misses as both. LeBouf, while capable as Kelly, never really makes you care about him. The plot devices are just too transparent and gratuitous. You know where the story is going well before it gets there. So many things are telegraphed, it feels like deja vu by the time they happen.

I would skip this and get much more entertainment from Project Greenlight Season 2.