Literally one of the best films made dealing with a multi-character story arc, and multiple themes. The acting is phenomenal, and the direction of the crowd scenes superb. Astounding to see any negative reviews on this one except for people who only watch comic book movies. Really stunning. I cannot believe how we'll directed it is. Bravo to all those involved. This subject is difficult to execute, no question. Also, conveying both sides of the battle..all sides...also must have been a challenge. Compared to the horrible films out there, how can anyone hate how this was conveyed? Please watch this if you can. Well worth it.

The story in this film is merely a framework for its attack on policies of the World Trade Organization that give lip service to environmental protection, workers rights, medicine for poor nations, etc. It is a dramatization of actual protests at the Seattle WTO meeting. What I particularly liked about the film was the way it sympathetically told the story from the perspectives of various sides in the conflict between protesters and the city, as well as the perspective of conference delegates from third world countries and NGOs. The Mayor thought he would score political points by getting the WTO to hold its meeting in his city. He was aware that there would be protests but had met in advance with the protests leaders and gotten pledges that the protests would be non-violent. In return he gave his word that police would only arrest any demonstrators who disrupted the proceedings. Decades ago the Mayor had been a participant in protests against the Vietnam War so he was reluctant to use any sort of violence against the protesters. Labor Unions planned a peaceful march in protest of the meeting, and had agreed to confine the march to a designated path. His Chief of Police assured him in advance of the meeting that the police were prepared to handle the demonstrations without getting any bad publicity.Things didn't go as the Mayor and Police Chief expected. Instead of picketing the conference site, the environmental protesters prevented delegates from reaching the meeting site. Then the Labor marchers deviated from the agreed path and also started breaking storefront windows. The Governor wanted the Mayor to declare an emergency curfew and call out the National Guard, but the Mayor believed that would worsen the situation. The Chief of Police got the Mayor to authorize use of tear gas and batons. The pregnant wife of a member of the police riot squad worked downtown and got caught in a violent attack on the nonviolent protesters.We see the story develop from the viewpoints of the Mayor and of the riot squad police officer and his wife, as well as from the perspective of the organizers of and participants in the environmental protests. We also briefly follow a conference NGO delegate who is at the conference to try to persuade the WTO to allow impoverished third world nations to obtain medicines at a lower cost. We also briefly see the conference from the viewpoint of a delegate from a third world nation who is trying to persuade the WTO to change its policies that the WTO purports helps impoverished nations, but in reality oppresses them. We also get the perspective of a TV reporter assigned to cover the convention, which President Clinton is scheduled to attend.

This was a serious and intelligent, if incredibly depressing, film about the anti-WTO protests in Seattle in November 1999, and how they affected some of the participants, on all sides of the barriers. The film mixed archive footage of the massive demonstrations, with modern reconstruction around the various story lines: several professional protesters and their reactions to the violence they were unwittingly (but not unforeseeably) responsible for, the civic and police authorities confronted with overwhelmingly hostile demonstrators out to break the law, the policeman on the front line whose pregnant wife, inadvertently gets caught up in the riot, is beaten by a passing policeman and loses her baby, the professional demonstrator bent on wilfully damaging property, the camera crew who go from being neutral to siding with the protesters as the civic response gets tough. The start of the film portrays the WTO as being some shadow organisation devoted to making the rich richer and the poor poorer whilst raping the planet. As usual with protect movements, truth does not matter. The fact that the WTO is there to try and provide a framework for policing international trade, and what would the situation be like without it, are of no concern to the protesters: the WTO is bad and must be smashed. This is a self-evident truth, so ordinary people should get out of the way whilst those who "care" take the law into their own hands. When it comes to defeating what protesters do not like, the law does not come into it. The film also makes it clear that (a) the demonstrators have nothing positive to offer, and that as usual (b) they take no responsibility for the consequences of their actions. On this point, the protester's lawyer who should no better, has no realisation of what she is doing. Generally, all the people the film seeks sympathy for are the demonstrators, who by their own ignorance and irresponsible refusal to accept the democratic process, puts a heavy burden on those paying through taxes for their right to be stupid. To be fair, the response to the demonstrations was affected by political rather than practical considerations of crowd control leading to ugly confrontations and use of force, but this was not the fault of the police.This is the sort of film which should provoke debate, but sadly, from the evidence of the demonstrators, their only response is to shout slogans and cry foul as they have nothing else.Here endeth the lesson.

This is the first feature film written, directed and produced by Stuart Townsend, but all I can really say, is it's a decent attempt."Battle in Seattle" is about a World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle in November 1999. Townsend gives us the points of view of the protesters, police force, city and national politicians, the public, and the WTO officials. He did a really good job of introducing us to the protesters, police force and the city's mayor, but I was mostly left confused about the representation of the other factors.At times there was shaky camera work, quick editing, and weird song choices. A headache was slowly forming. My headache was put on hold when the lead protester was on the screen (but unfortunately I can't name the actor because I never did catch the character's name), and also for Ray Liotta's scenes, who was quite effective as the mayor. I'm not sure why there were so many famous actors involved because I didn't get to know many of the other characters.There was certainly a battle, it was clearly shot in Seattle (or at least looked like Seattle), and "Battle in Seattle" should live up to expectations for fans of historical, political action films.