Tracy and I went to opening night at SIFF to catch the Stuart Townsend movie, “Battle in Seattle”. It was… okay, but like many in the audience, I was there when the WTO protests happened, and it was a bit strange to see a semi-fictionalized version of the events on screen. Andre Benjamin (from Outkast) was the runaway hit, though — while Woody Harrelson, Charlize Theron (with a completely unnecessary-to-the-plot pregnancy-with-horrible-end subplot) and the script playing distant second. Ray Liotta was completely miscast as the Mayor of Seattle, as was the actor who played the Governor. There was also an unnerving disconnect between real-world footage and the film’s footage, which made me wonder that a straight documentary would have the better solution.
It wasn’t all bad, though — apart from Benjamin’s performance, the fight scenes were very spot on, and Townsend worked with people involved on both sides of the WTO protests to help build a story.
BUT, the best account I’ve seen from any of these films is Showdown in Seattle: Five Days That Shook the WTO. On VHS, though.
