captainswife I am a big fan of Shia Lebouf, mostly because we watch a lot of Disney channel at my house and enjoy his acting. I didn't see Project Greenlight for this movie, so there were absolutely no expectations.The themes of the movie were fairly simple and clear throughout the movie. The dialogue was great (witty and funny), and I think Shia Lebouf did an excellent job of portraying the struggles of a "normal" teen. We didn't get too emotionally caught up with the characters during the movie, but we did find ourselves empathizing with them. My husband thought the editing was a bit choppy, but I didn't really notice it myself.

Robert J. Maxwell SPOILERS. A coming of age movie that raises questions about just how whacky a kid can be without someone in a white coat paying attention. Reminds me a little of other movies in which people walked the edge, "Sterile Cuckoo," for instance.The kid, LaBoeuf, is in high school and is something of an outsider. He makes enemies and he makes a friend, sort of. He's ordinary looking but seems to know everything about everything -- from flowers to art and military history. He'd give all this up in one big jiffy if his friend's sister, Amy Smart, a blonde graduate student who is so stunningly gorgeous that she is to physical beauty what LaBoeuf is to intellectual prowess, would only give him a tumble. And she does. A little anyway, after an especially bad hair day when she needs a little cuddling and reassurance. The problem of course is that this little kiss of sympathy means little to her, but emotionally he's working at about at his grade level.In the end he more or less grows up and starts dating the plain but rather engaging girl of his own age who works at the same supermarket. There are some subplots thrown in. LaBoeuf's father managed to lose all the kid's college money so the kid hates him. Kathleen Quinlan is the mother and there are tearful scenes in which she tells LaBoeuf that he, LaBoeuf, hates the man she loves. Much of this seems to belong to a different movie. And I'm not sure Dad deserves much in the way of admiration, having deprived his own kid of an education at Dartmouth and doomed him to a community college. For that matter I'm not sure that Tabby, the blonde he falls for, deserves his adoration. In a frantic last-minute talk with her, when she's about to be married, he tells her that the groom is not good enough for her because he's just some kind of would-be industrialist while she is an artist. I missed the first few minutes, but her work as we see it later, as she plays with "diffusion" -- well, there are more staggeringly gripping abstracts that have been done by elephants, literally. I kind of liked Tabby's boy friend though. He's tall, muscular, and handsome and looks stupid. When he and LaBoeuf first meet, LaBoeuf comes up with some insane riff about how his job at the supermarket makes him a caterpillar industrialist. The boy friend whistles and looks puzzled, but then anyone would in the face of this uncrafted explication of what it means to be a "pupa." And when we meet the boy friend later, for a minute or two, he seems like a genuinely nice guy who admits to having rented his tuxedo and who is really in love with Tabby. I had the feeling that he and Tabby -- not just Amy Smart but ANYBODY named Tabby -- would get along just fine. Even the divorce would be what is called "amicable."Too many things are going on in the movie, but LaBoeuf comes across as a kid who will eventually grow up and be a success in life once he is able to differentiate between make-believe and realpolitik. It could easily have been worse.

caspian1978 This is an independent movie? No, it is what a studio gets when they force Hollywood ideology on an independent production. For starters, I am sick to think that this script was the best out of over 15,000 scripts that were submitted in the Project Greenlight competition. Second, the direction in the movie is far from anything gritty or original. A generic style of anything basic, Shaker Heights is more of a student film with Hollywood production value than anything gritty or truly independent. Third, the casting of this film was hit and miss. Half of the actors were excellent while the other half simply read their lines from the script and nothing else. A simple rule in movie making that this production failed to follow was the relationship of the leading role with the movie. Your leading man . woman must identify with some percentage of the audience. If nobody understand what the character is going through, they don't care. Not only does the leading character fail to progress or change as a person by the end of the movie, but the characters motivation is pointless and the audience loses interest with him before we reach the half way point. If this was a low budget and a true independent film, I could see not being so negative. But I can't. If you spend over 1 million dollars and you have professional cast and crew members working for you, it is your job to produce a good film. Shaker Heights is not a good film. My two cents.

obiwan2005 I was totally into PG2, so today I went over to the Archlight CineramaDome on Sunset Blvd., in Hollywood, CA to see the final result of 'The Battle of Shaker Heights'. The movie is about a 17 year old boy named Kelly (Shia LeBeouf) who re-enacts war battles in his spare time. He also works the night-shift at the local supermarket with his friend Sarah (Shiri Appleby) who seems to have a crush on him. The movie centers around the events that take place after Kelly meets a new friend, Bart (Eldon Henson) at one of his battles. He meets Bart's sister, Tabby (Amy Smart) and falls for her. Problem is she is 23 and engaged. The film tries to make what Kelly goes through, too melodramatic. Like everyone is getting all excited over nothing. The plot whizzes by pretty fast. You end up saying 'Well, why is Bart mad? Is that all? Seems like he's over-reacting). Alot of the movie is this, over-reacting. The script (written by Erica Beeny) could have been better served after a few more drafts. And a script doctor. The directors (Kyle Rankin & Efram Potelle) don't accomplish the task of making the movie funny. There are hardly any laughs. I remember only chuckling once, perhaps twice. But I didn't laugh. Neither did the audience I saw it with (which was pretty crowded for a 1:50pm show on a Wednesday afternoon. Don't people in Hollywood have jobs!?!) The show Project Greenlight, chronicled the making of the movie. And they rushed this movie into production (filming only took 3 weeks and editing 2 or 3) The movie defintely suffers because of it. If given more time to be developed, like other movies do, it would have been alot better. It had great potential. Not to say it was bad, it kept me entertained for an hour and a half. I was just disappointed though. It felt incomplete. But, the final shot of the movie made was worth the 11 bucks I shelled out for the ticket. When Kelly finally realizes he belongs with Sarah and walks off with her into the horizon, he jumps on her back and then she jumps on his. It was so sweet, and cute. A true portrait of young love. And the clencher was Peter Gabriel's song 'When You're Falling' playing in the background. It was a PERFECT moment, as the movie faded out. It's rather rare I love an ending so much. But anyway, Kyle & Efram are funny guys, and they should write their own stuff from now on. It's not great, its not bad. It's just OK.RATING: ** out of ****