“Battle in Seattle” takes the story of the actual 1999 protests against a summit meeting of the World Trade Organization and uses them as a backdrop for a fictional story about characters swept up in the tumult. The result is not quite a documentary and not quite a drama but interesting all the same.
It uses an approach similar to that of Haskell Wexler’s “Medium Cool” (1969), but without the same urgency; Wexler’s actors were plunged into the actual demonstrations at the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention, and “Battle” is not as convincing.
Much of the story involves an unnecessary romantic attraction between Jay (Martin Henderson), leader of the protesters, and Lou (Michelle Rodriguez), a member of the movement. They have to have disputes about tactics and motivations, etc., while drawing closer together, and in this context, they’re just a distraction.
More to the point is Dale, the cop (Woody Harrelson) whose pregnant wife (Charlize Theron), a bystander, is caught up in the crowd and beaten by police. Dale asks for leave time but is ordered back on the street by his commanding officer and releases his grief through rage. Harrelson’s emotional arc in the film is convincing and effective.
But what to make of Jean, the TV newswoman (Connie Nielsen), who plunges with her cameraman into the thick of the fighting, ignores orders from her station and becomes sympathetic?
Those glitches aside, “Battle in Seattle” makes a case for the way the WTO is managed for the benefit of fat-cat nations. Some of the disagreement about the big Wall Street bailout reflects anger about the way money protects itself; should there be even a question that the executives who steered their companies into bankruptcy should be stripped of their multimillion-dollar bonuses?
