In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Blistering performances.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The movie is a heavy-handed drama. I don't think it will cause as many to tear up with heartfelt emotion, as to grimace with obviously telegraphed and contrived situations. I value it because of what it teaches about the misunderstood unfolding of events in that historical Battle In Seattle. The movie has important lessons for police, riot control, and activists such as Black Lives Matter who want to avoid destructive and counterproductive interactions. Because of the misleading press coverage at the time, American police departments geared up for an army of organized anarchist protesters they imagined would show up in their towns next... A closer study shows the protesters were average and the few violent anarchists probably would have done some damage and been curtailed in a normal city with competent crowd control. The movie shows why Seattle needed a new mayor and police chief due to the response to the protests. (Both lost their jobs.) People looking for political fame don't always make good decisions. Switching from one bad policy to another doesn't work: They went from "Arrest Nobody" to "Arrest Everybody". Students with 2 days of police school aren't ready to be put in formation for a major riot. Don't shoot teargas on to the buses going by!

This is a film concerning the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organisation meeting. Protesters had planned in advance to disrupt the meeting seeing the WTO as an unelected, unaccountable, self interest group that continues to put profit before people and denies legitimate scrutiny a voice.It has a few stories on the go to show what happens to both sides of the argument(s). Woody Harrelson plays a violent cop whose pregnant wife gets caught up and Channing Tatum is here in an early role also as a cop. Ray Liotta plays the City Mayor who is torn between having a successful summit and not wanting to use violence.There are a number of issues touched on here and the film struggles to be balanced to both sides – using the individual stories to illustrate how both sides do wrong. That could be where it falls down – it tries too hard to be reasonable. The WTO is a self interest group who uses sticking plaster solutions to Global problems as a smokescreen to its bloated ambitions of World trade and the never ending greed engendered by the profit motive.The acting though is all very good, but it does get a bit over emotional on one too many occasions. In stressful situations – feelings do run high and as such the lapses here are forgivable. Having said all of the above I still thought this was a compelling watch and so can recommend.

I caught this on the TV and was intrigued by the opening credits, always being one to be interested in real events and certainly ones in a recent political context. I admit that I was unaware of these events, but as the plot played out it left me feeling somewhat cold, always waiting for the hook that never came.This was basically a docudrama which melded the real and the reenactment together to create an at times frightening and tense view of the riots. Though this could have been any riot, over any subject, which was kind of the point. I feel that this could easily have been a film focusing on the Poll Tax riots of 1990 and have lost nothing.I feel that this needed to be more, in every area. More Seattle Riots, and I mean in a way that singled them out as such, and not just any riot. More character drama, with barely scratched the surface at most and more political. This attacks the WTO with the lowest common denominator, playing the emotional and reactionary left wing card, rather than a fully rounded balanced argument.I have no doubt that the World Trade Organisation is evil, as are most capital institutions, but there was little to convict them here, except the strong implications that they are against free speech.This was a film which was fair to it's characters; The riot cop just doing his job, the peaceful protesters, the anarchists and the forlorn Mayer. But there was a lack of a strong villain, as, as I've said, the WTO wasn't sufficiently justified.Also, its historical integrity has to be questioned. Simply put, are any of the characters portrait here real? The protesters are fictional, as I understand, but the Mayer? The reporter? It's not clear and based on their actions within the film, I would really like to know.*** SPOILER *** But finally, the most disturbing and probably the best, most compelling part of this film to me would be the what happens to Charlize Theron's character, a pregnant woman and wife of Woody Harleson's riot cop. As she is trying in vain to make her way home amidst the chaos of rioters clashing with police and in the confusion is treated as a rioter and is hit in the stomach with a baton. The result I'll leave in your imagination...This was best moment in the film were the true horror of these clashes become prevalent as the moral lines are crossed and order breaks down.************** In summation, this was worth a watch but will offer little in the way of clarification as to the motives of the events of that November, but maybe there are no more. Maybe it was a riot which stemmed from a protest against the capitalist machine. If you have strong lefty views then this is the film for you, if not, have a look but I doubt that you'll be blown away.

I really love this movie in many ways. I appreciate the good character development throughout the movie. I was getting very emotional through this movie. This movie also shows a few things that I feel are very important. I feel like people are forgetting that they are the ones with the power. It's just that not enough people exercise their power, so the elite one's can really take advantage. This movie shows that if enoguh people feel a certain way and act on those feelings they can change the world. Even if it's just one small step at a time. I really got into each characters story. I myself, being someone who has witnessed first hand what can happen if cops let their power go to their head and don't have any empathy for anyone. So I felt myself getting angry during the scenes where cops were beating non-violent protesters. Overall a good political movie with a very good story line and many good points.