Battle in Seattle

The directorial debut of actor Stuart Townsend, Battle in Seattle is an entertaining yet heavy-handed and ultimately simplistic look at the ’99 WTO protests that essentially turned Seattle into a war zone. Townsend makes absolutely no effort to hide his bias, and the filmmaker has consequently infused the movie with a number of far-from-subtle elements designed to win the viewer’s sympathy (something that’s particularly true of a fairly useless subplot in which a pregnant woman (Charlize Theron’s Ella) receives a police baton to the gut). The melodramatic mini-dramas among the various characters are kind of interesting but mostly predictable, while Townsend’s expected use of jittery camerawork becomes tiresome awfully fast. But despite such deficiencies, Battle in Seattle is basically entertaining; actors like Ray Liotta, Andre Benjamin, and Martin Henderson effectively breathe life into their one-dimensional characters, and the movie rarely slows down long enough to allow the viewer time to dwell on the more eye-rollingly obvious elements within the script (eg the superficial reporter who discovers her social consciousness). Much like last year’s Bobby, Battle in Seattle has clearly been made by a passionate filmmaker with his heart in the right place – yet, despite the inclusion of several first-class performances and a number of individually compelling sequences, there’s just no overlooking the various flaws inherent within much of the film’s running time.

**1/2 out of ****