Bataille à Seattle

This is a film concerning the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organisation meeting. Protesters had planned in advance to disrupt the meeting seeing the WTO as an unelected, unaccountable, self interest group that continues to put profit before people and denies legitimate scrutiny a voice.

It has a few stories on the go to show what happens to both sides of the argument(s). Woody Harrelson plays a violent cop whose pregnant wife gets caught up and Channing Tatum is here in an early role also as a cop. Ray Liotta plays the City Mayor who is torn between having a successful summit and not wanting to use violence.

There are a number of issues touched on here and the film struggles to be balanced to both sides – using the individual stories to illustrate how both sides do wrong. That could be where it falls down – it tries too hard to be reasonable. The WTO is a self interest group who uses sticking plaster solutions to Global problems as a smokescreen to its bloated ambitions of World trade and the never ending greed engendered by the profit motive.

The acting though is all very good, but it does get a bit over emotional on one too many occasions. In stressful situations – feelings do run high and as such the lapses here are forgivable. Having said all of the above I still thought this was a compelling watch and so can recommend.

I was at the battle in seattle...all 4 days of it....they cant get the days or times right....the gassing didn't start till after 5 pm in the afternoon on N30 not during lunchtime, we didn't march on the jail till December 3rd not December 2nd, and the Broadway and Pine Riots or as we locals call it the city sanctioned gay bashing wasn't started because of a cop flipping out but rather when a few people started shaking the police car with a cop in it...they don't bring up the fact that in the mornings people came downtown with coffee for police and brooms to clean up the mess...they don't talk about the peaceful protest that stayed on the sidewalk in response to said Broadway riots...and they didn't talk about how people were boxed in at 2 am when bars close infront of 3 packed bars. for a movie yeah its a good watch but for a look at the Battle In Seattle they could have done better in getting their facts right

I just came back from watching the film at the Toronto International film festival, and I absolutely loved it. It is brilliantly made and brilliantly acted. Stuart Townsend is a very talented man; he is sure to win a few Oscars before the end of his career. Battle in Seattle is a great work which simply tells the story of the WTO riots in Seattle, without an obvious bias (at least in my opinion). The film also uses real footage during some parts which really help those who were not present during the riots see that the film isn't exaggerating how horrific people's actions were (on both sides). I highly recommend this film for anyone who loves films that entertain and teach.

"Labour itself is but a sorrowful song, The protest of the weak against the strong."

Frederick William Faber

As a liberal, I empathize with the protesters in the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. And I do empathize. The need for world organizations and big companies to consider the health of poorer countries before appropriating their resources is paramount.

In Battle in Seattle, director Stuart Townsend uses the stock devices of the docudrama: smoothly inter-cutting between scenes of police and protesters and expertly interspersing authentic footage with the dramatized. The feel is as if the audience is participant; the dilemma of how far either side should go in keeping the peace or disturbing it is palpable.

The drama is enhanced by fictionalizing the opposing forces through the lens of policeman Dale (Woody Harrelson) and his wife, Ella (Charlize Theron), both caught up in the escalating violence and too neatly tied to the issues of each side. The challenges of the protesters are also too deftly tied to a romance of the leader and a follower.

This facile mixing of truth and fiction leaves me a bit cold, as if I were the victim of a fraud because the reality of the historic event seems trivialized by clichéd romances and tragedies. I am always dismayed by the Michael-Moore-style loading of the left to the exclusion of the right's point of view: What are the purposes of the WTO? Has it been successful? How? These questions are rarely explored any more than the complicated motives and lives of the protesters.

But the docudrama succeeds in illuminating the WTO and its critics. As history has written, little progress has been made during the intervening decade even though the talks were stopped in Seattle. But as one of the combatants points out, only by small steps and persistence can the battle be won. And so went the Battle in Seattle.

I was lucky enough to see this film in advance, and it opened my eyes to a few very important issues.

Going in, I'd never even heard of the "battle in Seattle," as I was only 13 years old at the time of the protests. But now that I'm aware of the event, it makes me wonder why the controversies with the WTO aren't still being discussed on a larger scale.

This is something that we should all be concerned about, and Stuart Townsend has done us a favor by introducing the issues in a format that is riveting, informative, and inspirational. If there's one thing Battle in Seattle does best, it's that it fires you up to take action any way you can.

Not to mention the great production values, absolutely stellar cast, and intense action sequences (Intense because they're real! Actual footage was used).

I would highly recommend attending a showing of this film with your family and friends, because these matters are important to us all, and Stuart's presentation of them is nothing short of breathtaking.