Viewers might want to try this on eyes, ears

The riots begin early in Battle in Seattle, and not 20 minutes into Stuart Townsend’s portrayal of the 1999 World Trade Organization protests, there’s a doomsday exchange between the city’s police chief and its freaked-out mayor: “There’s only one option left!” the cop tells Jim Tobin (Ray Liotta), who recognized the activists’ right to assemble and had forbidden the use of violence against them. So it’s time to get dirty, but after demonstrations, chaos, and greenlit use of force, where could the narrative possibly go for another 80 minutes?

Back to more of the same, essentially. For anyone who wasn’t paying attention nine years ago, Seattle had been scheduled to host the first WTO conference on American soil. Peaceful and apparently ridiculously well-organized protesters set out to shut it down, and they did—but only after five days of allegedly unprovoked police brutality and hundreds of arrests that turned the downtown area into “Beirut,” as the governor (Tzi Ma) puts it.

Townsend, an actor better known for being Charlize Theron’s boyfriend than for his roles in films such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, has created an unremarkable and often dull writing and directorial debut. His docudrama approach, which weaves real footage into his fictional story, was a good idea, and the war-zone bedlam of clashing masses comes across.

The lead anarchists, however, are less than gripping. Martin Henderson, a nonpresence in films such as The Ring and Torque, is equally uncharismatic here as Jay, an activist whose vengeance is personal. Lou (Michelle Rodriquez, playing, surprise, a tough girl) joins Jay’s group and serves as a forced love interest. And André Benjamin is Django, a save-the-turtles guy who’s meant to add levity but is mostly annoying, particularly when he tries to rouse a bus of arrestees by singing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” On the other side of the conflict are—irony alert!—known activist Woody Harrelson and Theron, playing a riot cop and his pregnant wife, as well as Connie Nielsen, the token hottie reporter with a heart.

The cast spans the spectrum of acting talent, but even the best can’t make Townsend’s awkward dialogue sound good (especially Liotta, whose increasing panic is hilarious). Worse, there’s no mistaking whose side Townsend is on: The film begins and ends with WTO history lessons, with plenty of sermonizing about humanity versus money in between. The camerawork, too, underscores scenes of injustice, in one case cutting to worked-over protesters after the line, “Look around you!” just in case the audience fell asleep. Whoops, almost did.

Only one winner at this table

Even with a cast of aces up his sleeve, writer-director Zak Penn can’t beat Christopher Guest at his own game in The Grand, a star-studded pro-poker spoof improvised and shot in the erstwhile Nigel Tufnel’s trademark mockumentary style.

Penn’s a fair bluffer, though. To help flesh out his reportedly scant 29-page script (co-scratched with Matt Bierman), the writer best known for his work on the X-Men sequels gathered an ensemble skilled at both quick comedy and card-­playing—the project’s most interesting twist is that the ending was left open, allowing the story’s top competitors play the final big-stakes game for real.

Otherwise, The Grand is parody as usual, with its pseudo-sport, wacky-rivals angle now so familiar you expect Will Ferrell to show up among the mostly lower-profile names such as Cheryl Hines, David Cross, Chris Parnell, Richard Kind, Dennis Farina, and even Werner Herzog, amusingly cast as an intimidating player known simply as “The German.”

The focus of the story is Woody Harrelson’s Jack Faro, a gambler with so many addictions that he moved into a rehab center and who is now trying to win the money to buy back his dead grandpa’s casino. Unfortunately, Jack isn’t all that funny or even interesting; besting Harrelson in the Most Thankless Role category, however, is Gabe Kaplan, who isn’t exactly welcomed back as the cruel, crotchety, and downright unlikable father of Hines’ and Cross’ twin players. (Also wasted are Michael McKean, borrowed from the Guest troupe yet allowed only one good joke; Ray Romano, highly unfunny as a dead-weight husband; and Judy Greer, though considering her career choices, that’s less of a surprise.)

Mercifully, a few cast members keep things entertaining, most notably Hines, whose plays a dreadlocked trash-talker (“Nobody beats me at Candy Land—ask my kids”) but makes her human instead of caricature, and Parnell, whose ­underused Harold is a borderline idiot savant who quotes Dune, drones statistics in lieu of small talk, and has lived with his mother “since he was born.” Without them, The Grand would be a fast fold.

Who here has beaten a concept to death?

“Wrestling the bear” isn’t quite as colorful a phrase as “jumping the shark.” But when you see Will Ferrell trying to fight a not-so-gentle Ben in his latest sports comedy, Semi-Pro, you can’t help but think the glory days of the former Saturday Night Live star’s dumb-guy shtick are over.

Ferrell’s Jackie Moon, the dim-but-arrogant owner/coach/promoter/star of an American Basketball Association team in Michigan, is a lot like his Chazz Michael Michaels in last year’s Blades of Glory and Ricky Bobby in 2006’s Talladega Nights. But unlike both of those movies, which coasted on their one-joke premises amiably enough, Semi-Pro starts out promisingly and tanks fast. Worse, it doesn’t even have a solid golden gag to carry it. A two-dude figure-skating team? Comic genius. Ball players in the ’70s? Eh.

The filmmakers—first-time director Kent Alterman and Starsky & Hutch writer Scot Armstrong—deserve some credit, however. The laughs that are there begin before we even catch a glimpse of the massively ’fro’d Jackie: The screen’s still fading into credits when we hear Ferrell whispering the filthy lyrics to “Love Me Sexy,” Jackie’s overexposed hit song that he refuses to let die. He’s singing it center-court before introducing his teammates with such give-it-up! descriptors as “He’s ugly as shit!” And on the sidelines are radio announcers played by Will Arnett and Andrew Daly, one lascivious and drunk, the other stick-up-his-ass squeaky. Good stuff.

But once the story kicks in about the sorry team’s attempt to prove itself worthy of being absorbed into the NBA—a plot that introduces Woody Harrelson as a former Celtic who was traded for a washing machine—the shallow characters flatten completely and Semi-Pro becomes just another dull underdog movie. Two of the more ambitious comic set pieces, involving a gun and masturbation, go from mildly funny to wince-inducing and creepy, while the many cameos—except for Jackie Earle Haley as an “extremely dirty hippie” named Dukes—are as forgettable as Maura Tierney’s underwritten love interest. Ferrell still has great moments, pulling off an occasional brilliant delivery or affronted expression. But when you wrestle the bear, it’s time to move on.