Entertainment

Battle for Brooklyn

You have to admire the tenacity of Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley, who spent seven years documenting the sadly doomed grass-roots struggle to stop the Atlantic Yards project, a development boondoggle built around a basketball arena in Brooklyn.

Unfortunately for the film, it’s clear from the outset this is a totally one-sided battle that well-connected developer Bruce Ratner is fated to win. With powerful allies like Mayor Bloomberg, (clownish) Borough President Marty Markowitz and the New York Times, Ratner gets huge economic concessions when the economy goes south.

Promising an employment bonanza and subsidized housing that have yet to materialize, Ratner holds onto his approvals even after he fires the high-profile architect (Frank Gehry) he used to sell the project in the first place.

“Battle for Brooklyn” oddly tells its story from the point of view of Daniel Goldstein, a graphic artist who’s the only one of 32 tenants in his upscale condo building to turn down a $1 million-plus payout from Ratner to move. He marries a fellow activist, they raise their child in the abandoned building and he pursues a lawsuit on an arcane legal point to the State Supreme Court . . . before bowing to the inevitable. Not exactly inspiring.