Battle in Seattle (R) * ½

This is issues drama at its patchiest.

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Issues drama at its patchiest, Battle in Seattle takes the 1999 street siege protesting the World Trade Organization conference as the jumping off point for a simplistic diatribe. The minnows vs. whales setup gives us idealistic march organizers in conflict with avaricious corporate henchmen and their governmental stooges whose policies, according to the marchers, are a raw deal for workers, the environment and Third World countries.

I'm no expert on trade guidelines, but the deck is stacked against the WTO so heavily that, in dramatic terms, they're the underdogs. The activists are uniformly young, attractive and adventurous. The film opens with an exciting sequence of protesters hooking a protest banner to a construction crane that makes protest look like a kickass extreme sport. Their adversaries are a phalanx of anonymous, frowning wrinklies in suits.

A fair number of Hollywood names go slumming in one-dimensional roles. Stuart Townsend (Mr. Charlize Theron) is the film's writer/director, and the casting has the feel of friends and acquaintances recruited at a cocktail party. Ray Liotta is the embattled mayor. OutKast singer Andre Benjamin is an upbeat eco-philosopher. Michelle Rodriguez and Martin Henderson are activist-lovers. Connie Nielsen is a jaded TV reporter. Woody Harrelson is a good cop pushed to the limit, and Theron is his pregnant nonpolitical wife. The ragged narrative mixes all the players together as the plans of the benevolent city government and well-meaning marchers go awry in an escalating series of confrontations.

The scenes of conflict carry a certain local resonance after the recent arrests surrounding the Republican National Convention, but the film's ambitions exceed Townsend's grasp. After the tear gas clears, Benjamin's character sums up what the conflict accomplished. ''Now people know what the WTO is,'' he says. After a moment's consideration, he says, ``No, they don't. But they know the WTO is bad.''

The same could be said for the movie, which will leave you slightly better informed than two hours spent staring at a wall.

Cast: Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Andre Benjamin

Director/screenwriter: Stuart Townsend

Producers: Mary L. Aloe, Maxime Rémillard, Kirk Shaw, Stuart Townsend

Running time: 99 minutes. Language and some violence. Playing at: In Miami-Dade only: Cosford.

Charlize Theron in a scene from Stuart Townsend's Battle in Seattle. Photo: Ed Araquel. Photo courtesy of Redwood Palms Pictures.