The trouble with Battle In Seattle is right there in its opening disclaimer: It is inspired by real events, but its characters are fictional. Hew boy, are they. Here we have a film that skillfully and powerfully reconstructs a disturbing event, and then inhabits it with paper-thin characters that are nearly impossible to care about, in spite of the heroic efforts of several fine actors.

The film concerns the events of late November and early December 1999, when upwards of 40,000 activists from around the world descended on Seattle to protest at the World Trade Organization's Ministerial Conference. Stuart Townsend, an actor (and husband of co-star Charlize Theron) making his writing and directing debut, tells the story in a pseudo-Crash style, via a series of divergent but occasionally intersecting characters.

First, the good: Townsend's recreations of the clashes in the streets between the protestors and the police are brutal, compelling, first-class cinema. The disruptions (at least at the beginning) were tightly planned, with near-military precision, and that process is truly fascinating to watch. As the altercations get more and more out of hand, Townsend shows a sure hand for conveying the escalation and horror of those scenes; they unfold with an antsy you-are-there immediacy, even if the film is rather obviously riffing on Medium Cool.

The trouble is, Townsend is a far better director than writer. While his opening sequence does a fine job of encapsulating a complex situation, and the straight-forward reportage of the closing is undoubtedly affecting, the script that they bookend is unfortunately pedestrian. The dialogue is weak and often cliché-ridden; one character actually says, out loud and in front of a camera, "If you don't stand up and fight, everything beautiful is going to be taken away."

But the real trouble is the screenplay's reliance on every manner of stock character. We've got the passionate and charismatic activist leader with a past, the indifferent reporter ("I'm just looking for a good story!") who gets personally involved, the helpless bureaucrat of a mayor, the aimless activist who find her own voice, etc. The thinnest character is Channing Tatum's hard-ass cop, who clearly was supposed to become sympathetic to the cause in a turn that (as far as I can tell) was left on the cutting room floor. The only thing worse than a clichéd character is an incompletely clichéd character.

The only real surprise is in the turn of Woody Harrelson's Dale, a cop whose personal fallout from the street clashes takes on a decidedly unexpected dimension; it's nice to have at least one character whose arc is unpredictable. Harrelson also helps, turning in a finely-tuned, three-dimensional performance; for that matter, most of the actors are quite strong. Ray Liotta is particularly good, continuing his well-advised metamorphosis into a first-class character actor, and while Theron doesn't get much to do, she does it very well. Andre Benjamin, Michelle Rodriguez, and Connie Nielsen (who I've never been much of a fan of) also have some potent moments, while the always-underrated Rade Serbedzija is expectedly terrific.

In their finer moments, these actors make Battle In Seattle play. Too bad they're stranded in a screenplay that isn't as smart as they are.

Video & Audio:

Universal has only provided DVD Talk with a single-layer screening copy for review. As is custom, the disc features un-finalized video and audio presentations, including an anamorphic image that's full of compression artifacts and "Screening Copy Only" burn-ins. The 5.1 audio mix is more acceptable, with a clean center dialogue track and a nice spread of bass-heavy music and vivid sound effects, but this too may be a work-in-progress.

Even more irritating, the screener disc includes none of the bonus features promised on the case; the appropriate menu reads "Special Features Available on Live Version." The final disc will supposedly include an audio commentary by Townsend, a making-of featurette, background info on the WTO, and the original theatrical trailer, but none of that has been provided for us to peruse.

Battle In Seattle is a skillfully-made and well-acted docudrama saddled with a weak, thin script that frequently disengages the viewer. Its harrowing reenactments and fine performances are worth a rental, but that's about it (particularly as we're not sure if the bonus features provide any added value for the consumer).

Jason lives in New York. He holds an MA in Cultural Reporting and Criticism from NYU.