I recently rented a movie titled “The Battle of Shaker Heights” which I had heard was about reenactors. As most of us know, movie companies use reenactors in their productions, but actually making movies which feature reenacting as part of the plot is a fairly recent development. So, I was curious to see what this one was about. I was vaguely aware that the filming was part of an HBO reality series produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
The film starts out well enough with what appears to be a WWII battle with GIs and Germans engaged in fierce combat with explosions all over the place. Eventually an American captures a German and dresses in his uniform to infiltrate German headquarters and save a captured GI. He no sooner shoots a couple of the Krauts when a cell phone goes off and one of the Germans comes back to life to answer and tell his mother that she is calling at a bad time and could she come to pick him up around 3:00. Okay, this is funny, farby from a reenactor’s viewpoint, but funny.
Unfortunately, the film goes off in a different direction from this point. The central character, Kelly, is a disaffected teen who is bitter at most things in his life because his father is a recovering drug addict who apparently doesn’t work except as a volunteer with other junkies. (The adults in the film are all pretty two-dimensional.) Kelly complains to his mother about the family’s poverty, but he has a period jeep and a full airborne kit with a garand, just for starters.
This bitterness leads him into conflicts with his inept history teacher and the teacher’s son, who bullies him. (the bully is smaller than the protagonist and is usually alone, so you have to wonder why he just doesn’t stand up to him?) His best friend, Lance, is a spoiled rich kid who only reenacts because he thought it would look good on a resume’!! (Can’t say it has ever helped me get a job.) Predictably, the kid gets even with the bully and experiences some life changing events which result in him completely changing his world view. Part of his resolution is to quit reenacting and live in the real world.
Overall, the movie seems like one of those painful-to-watch 80’s teen angst movies with a dose of ninties social relevance (the junkie dad) thrown in. The sceenwriter and director may have talked to a few reenactors (probably the extras) to have some sense of the hobby, but not much. Overall, they really don’t seem to like reenacting much, or for that matter, history at all, hence dumping the hobby as part of Kelly’s healing. As a general movie, its okay, I guess, if you are a fan of movies about self-absorbed teenagers. As a movie about reenacting or reenactors, it’s a stinker.
So, Matt and Ben’s project aside, I can’t say that I recommend this one. Still, if you are curious, you can rent it from Netflix or buy it from Amazon.
If anybody out there has recommendations of other ‘Reenactor Movies,’ post them, I will be happy to check them out and give my admittedly biased review.
Leave a Reply