Barnes & Noble

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. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

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. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Product Details

• UPC: 786936232820
• Source: MIRAMAX
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Theatre Wide-Screen (1.85.1)
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Time: 1:19:00
• Sales Rank: 39,265

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• Project Greenlight 2

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