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The Battle of Shaker Heights
A quirky teen with a penchant for war reenactments, Kelly Ernswiler obsesses over military tactics with his buddy Bart. The school bully is one of Kelly's regular headaches, and he also has to deal with a frustrating situation at home, where his father is a recovering drug addict. Kelly's life gets even more complicated when he falls for Tabby, Bart's pretty and soon-to-be-wed older sister.
2003 · Directed by Kyle Rankin · 79 min · Comedy · Drama · Romance · Screenplay in the scene database · 2 frames
Tagline
When you're 17, every day is war.
Plot
Kelly Ernswiler, a young war reenactment enthusiast, works at his local store with love interest Sarah and Bart Bowland. Kelly's father, Abe, works with drug addicts, being clean himself for over five years. His mother, Eve, is a commercial artist.
Kelly attempts to woo Bart's older sister, Tabby, even though she's set to marry Miner Weber, a handsome businessman. Kelly becomes a regular at Bart's house, being over for dinner often, and he impresses Bart's father, Harrison, with their common fondness for war memorabilia, and Bart's mother by complimenting her on her flowers, and he often talks to Tabby in her workshop. During this time, Sarah asks him to go to an Aerosmith concert, which she has a spare ticket for, telling him it would be good for him to get out more. When he bluntly makes it clear that he knows it would be a date, he tells her he is seeing someone else, obviously meaning Tabby. Before Kelly and Bart perform their plan for Lance's humiliation, Bart makes it clear to Kelly that he knows he has "his own agenda", at which Kelly is insulted and angry, and Bart displaces it as "pre-mission nervous energy". They recreate an invasion on the street where Lance lives and drag him out of the house pointing guns at him and shouting at him with German accents. They videotape the whole thing and he urinates out of fear.
Afterwards, the boys are drinking whiskey at Bart's house and Bart passes out in a chair by the fire. Kelly makes to go home and goes to the workshop to say goodbye to Tabby. He walks in on her crying, as she now thinks the marriage will be off and goes to comfort her, and they kiss. As Kelly is leaving, Bart sees him and is furious as he knew he was in the workshop. The next day, as Kelly is on a set for a war program that Bart got them in, Bart hasn't turned up. Kelly is cast in a role to be a jeep driver and when his cue is called, Bart turns up out of the bushes and confronts him about Tabby. Kelly denies it at first and then becomes speechless. As he is about to drive for his cue, Bart attacks him in the jeep and they make a mess of the set.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: Erica Beeney
- Cinematography: Thomas E. Ackerman
- Edited by: Richard Nord
- Music: Richard Marvin
- Production design: Lisa K. Sessions
- Produced by: Jeff Balis, Chris Moore
Cast
- Shia LaBeouf as Kelly Ernswiler
- Elden Henson as Bart Bowland
- Amy Smart as Tabby
- Billy Kay as Lance
- Kathleen Quinlan as Eve
- Shiri Appleby as Sarah
- William Sadler as Abe
- Ray Wise as Harrison
- Jesse Heiman as (uncredited)
- Philipp Karner as Maurice / German Soldier
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Miramax, LivePlanet
- Budget: $1,000,000
- Themes: high school, sister, bully, battlefield, strategy, addict
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