Fair Game

Jethro's Note: In between two reviews, I made an "experimental entry." Unfortunately, I found out too late I can't delete it. (Grrr). So, I'm putting this film I saw after them since it was released at the same time.

In 2008, a film called Nothing but the Truth came out just as its production company went belly up. It was the fictionalization of the scandal involving the outing of a certain CIA agent. Now, two years later, a film about the real people involved, Fair Game, has arrived.

In 2003, CIA Agent Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) lived a quiet life with her husband, U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson (Sean Penn). Against his advice, the U.S. Government went to war with Iraq over alleged stockpiles of nuclear weapons. He wrote an op-ed criticizing the Government for that decision, and a few days later, the words “CIA” and “Valerie Plame” are in the same sentence of another news article.

After this, Plame is demoted to a desk job, leaving her contacts for a big assignment in jeopardy. Her boss treats her like nothing, while she gets threats from anonymous creeps. Wilson, meanwhile, is slandered by the right-wing media. In short, their world has gone to hell.

The film’s screenplay, by Jez and John Butterworth, is a composite of Plame and Wilsons’ individual memoirs. The former, which provides the film its title, has rows of blacked out words on every page (due to CIA censorship). Fortunately, the film does not leave the audience in the dark too often, resulting in a concise storyline.

As Wilson and Plame, Penn and Watts are the stars of the show. They’re quite believable to the point that one can’t help but feel angry at the creeps harassing them at every turn. Sure enough, the audience will understand the betrayals they’ve encountered.

Its director and cinematographer is Doug Liman, who also did The Bourne Identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Unlike those two spy thrillers, this one is more down to earth. If this wasn’t down to earth, it wouldn’t be the compelling film that it is.