Mr. Eric D. Snider saw and reviewed Stuart Townsend's Battle in Seattle when it played at the South By Southwest Film Festival last March. As the film is opening tomorrow in limited release, we offer a reprint of that review.

Watching Battle in Seattle is like being jabbed in the belly with a police baton, and not in a good way. Written and directed rather ambitiously by the actor Stuart Townsend, who has never written or directed anything before, it uses fictional characters to tell a true story but gives us no reason to care about the people, their lives, or their political causes. The riots that occurred at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999 may well have been historically significant -- but you wouldn't know it from watching Battle in Seattle, which insists on telling us how important the issues are rather than showing us.

Townsend gives a cursory explanation of what the WTO is and tells us that many oppose it for its lax policies on human rights and labor standards. The details aren't important to him, though. He seems to take it as a given that we already dislike the WTO, even though most viewers' response to WTO is "WTF?" It's a massive, complicated international organization that deals with stodgy, unsexy issues like trade and commerce, and I guarantee the vast majority of the audience isn't nearly as interested in it as Townsend is. And if the point is that we should be interested in it, he fails to explain why.

Cinematical has just received this exciting exclusive clip from Battle in Seattle, directed by Stuart Townsend. In theaters this weekend, Battle in Seattle tells the true story of what happened when tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Seattle to protest the World Trade Organization. Starring folks like Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Ray Liotta, André Benjamin and Michelle Rodriguez, the film follows several different points of view -- from protesters and police to delegates and doctors. In the clip, Woody Harrelson plays a SWAT officer who begins to take the taunting of protesters a little too personally. Check it out after the jump...

Warning: The following clip contains foul language.

It's been clear for several weeks now that the independent distribution company THINKfilm has been suffering from some money troubles. Around the time the Cannes Film Festival kicked off this month, blogger AJ Schnack assembled reports from various sources that the company owed a lot of money to many different places. Now, Nikkie Finke reports that Allied Advertising Ltd. filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court today against THINKfilm owner David Bergstein, claiming that THINKfilm failed to pay for Allied's advertising services in a timely manner, while the distributor pretended that wasn't the case. A serious problem indeed.

It's a little unfair, however, for Allied to complain about THINKfilm's decision to continue doing what they do best -- buying films. The lawsuit says that the company embarked on a "lavish film licensing buying spree at various film festivals around the world," rather than exclusively focusing on paying off debt. It's worth noting that THINKfilm remained fairly withdrawn at Cannes this year, and while they did pick up theatrical rights for Marina Zenovich's Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired at Sundance, the film already had a television deal in place with HBO. Meanwhile, the company has dropped Battle in Seattle, which it originally purchased at the Toronto Film Festival. The "buying spree" sounds like needless exaggeration on Allied's part. Whatever the case, given THINKfilm's track record (they did guide Ryan Gosling to his Half Nelson Oscar nod), one hopes they'll survive this nasty legal snafu.

With the news that Battle in Seattle will open the Seattle International Film Festival, and coverage of the recent Olympic protests on every channel, it couldn't be a better time to release the trailer for the protest drama. Movieset is currently hosting the full trailer for the film set during the infamous World Trade Organization riots in Seattle in 1999.

In 1999, the World Trade Organization (WTO) convened in Seattle, Washington for a global trade negotiation conference. Before anyone knew what had happened, over 40,000 protesters had amassed outside the conference buildings and the anti-globalization group, Direct Action Network, had total control over downtown intersections. Unfortunately, the protests erupted into violence and a state of emergency pitted demonstrators against the National Guard and local police.

Stuart Townsend's directorial debut has a huge cast including Ray Liotta, Charlize Theron, Michelle Rodriguez, Martin Henderson, Channing Tatum, André Benjamin, and Woody Harrelson. Judging by Eric's SXSW review it doesn't look like all that star power has helped the film all that much. Battle was originally scheduled to be released in March, but has been moved back to September. It makes much more sense to release this kind of 'earnest' political drama when everyone is finished with summer popcorn flicks and are ready for something with just a little substance, however heavy-handed it might be.

[via Coming Soon]

Battle in Seattle has nothing to do with the Rumble in the Jungle or the Thrilla in Manila. It's also not connected to the fictional "siege of Seattle" mentioned in Children of Men. No, Battle in Seattle refers to the real-life riots that occurred in 1999 when protesters sought to stop a meeting of the World Trade Organization. Irish actor Stuart Townsend wrote and directed a dramatization of the events, it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival -- and now Variety reports that ThinkFilm has bought the film for a cool $2 million.

Battle in Seattle stars Charlize Theron (Townsend's girlfriend), Woody Harrelson, and Ray Liotta, among quite a few others, and takes a documentary-style approach, with multiple points of view from multiple characters. We've been following the film for some time: Here are some details from a year ago; here's more casting and plot details.

ThinkFilm proved to be the big spender of this year's TIFF. I told you a few days ago about the distributor's acquisition of Helen Hunt's Then She Found Me for somewhere between $2.5 million and $3 million. Coincidentally, both films are the directorial debuts of well-known actors. Will Hunt or Townsend turn out to be the next Clint Eastwood or Robert Redford? Time will tell.

When I reported about this film earlier, it looked like Oscar winner Charlize Theron was a lock to star in it. Soon after, it appeared she was jumping ship to board another film which would be her next project. The question of Theron's participation in Battle in Seattle may or may not be solved at the moment, but that hasn't stopped writer/director Stuart Townsend from continuing to assemble an impressive roster of established and up-and-coming actors for his directorial debut.

According to production weekly, super-hot Michelle Rodriguez, Jennifer Carpenter, Channing Tatum and Tzi Ma have now joined the cast of Battle in Seattle which already includes Woody Harrelson, Martin Henderson, Ray Liotta -- and, most likely, Townsend's fianceé, Charlize Theron. The documentary-style film tells the intertwining stories of dozens of characters who attended the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. During the meeting, protesters marched and campaigned so vehemently that the event eventually had to be halted. Between 40,000 and 60,000 people were involved in the protests. If Theron does end up appearing in the film (and let's face it, she probably will -- she does like the guy after all), Theron is expected to play a pregnant bystander named Lou who gets caught up in the protests and provides some perspective for the participants and the audience.

To be fair,I can't say for sure if I'm that into the storyline of this film, but it does sound at least interesting. It also sounds quite complicated to film and I just hope fledgling director Townsend is up to the task. But with the cast that Townsend is assembling, there might just be something to this film. In the end, much of the success of a film is determined by who's in it. If that holds true for Battle in Seattle, Townsend might just have a hit on his hands right out of the gate. All he has to do is try not to get in the way too much and let his cast do their work. Battle in Seattle is scheduled to start shooting next week in Vancouver -- and, of course, Seattle.

What do you think? Does this film have a chance?

It appears two more actors have decided to throw on the gloves and prepare to Battle in Seattle. Last week we told you how Charlize Theron had agreed to star in her real-life boyfriend's directorial debut. (Yes, for Stuart Townsend, those are the benefits of dating an Oscar-winning actress.)

Now, according to Production Weekly, Susan Sarandon and Chris Evens are in talks to co-star in the pic, which revolves around the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle and the chaos (we're talking 40-60,000 protesters) that ultimately consumed the city, making it close to impossible for the World Trade Organization to continue their meetings. Heck, I'm just curious to see how Townsend manages to control the thousands of extras most likely needed during production. Talk about a hectic way to pop your directing cherry, huh?