Fair Game

First of all: I'm not an American, so I have no interest in any of the left wing vs right wing political immaturity that goes on there. And since I'm being honest: if this film was a work of fiction - it wouldn't have been that great, maybe a 6/10 IMDb rating.

What makes this film absolutely mind blowing is that this stuff actually happened. Wow! You can argue the little details if you wish, but the bulk of this is public record and you're not kidding anyone. This gets an 8/10 on IMDb from me because it's non-fiction and it's a very very important story.

The war in Iraq was a crime and the guilty should be required to watch this movie, a few times. How many thousands of lives could have been saved? Feel shame and learn from your mistakes. Get mad! Don't ever be fooled like this again!!!

Frankly this movie should be shown in schools for the next 100 years - it should be considered required viewing in History classes. I think it's important that this little piece of the past is not swept under the rug anytime soon. I praise the makers of this film, I praise Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it - so cherish this 108 minute reminder of America's greatest mistake.

In retrospect, the George "Dubyah" Bush administration seems to have been more incompetent than evil, but this movie holds the Bushies to account for what was a completely malicious and unjustified act, the outing of the covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, which put numerous undercover operations and informants at risk, solely because her husband former Ambassador Joe Wilson IV had the temerity to dissent publicly from the White House line that the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium from Niger for bomb-making purposes. It is also evident that the CIA's soundly based advice that Saddam's bomb-making activities had ceased after the first Gulf War in 1991 was studiously ignored by the White House in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The actual leaker, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage got away scot-free, a crucial matter not discussed in the film , but "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Chaney's chief of staff carried the can and nearly spent 30 months inside for lying to investigators before being pardoned by the President. The film focuses on Libby and implies he was the leaker, acting with the knowledge of Karl Rove, the man who described Valerie Plame as "fair game", and Vice President Cheney.

Director Doug Liman is best known as a producer of thrillers ("Bourne Ultimation" etc) but here he and the Butterworths (Jez and John Henry) as scriptwriters have focused not only on the political intrigue but also the effect the Bushies' bastardry had on Joe and Valerie's personal lives. This gives some great acting possibilities to Sean Penn as Joe and our very own Naomi Watts as Valerie, and they both rise to the occasion, although Sean Penn might be a little self-righteous for some tastes. The personal impact aside, what the leakers did was a good deal worse than anything Julian Assange has done, and it is ironic that some of the conservative commentators who tried to discredit Joe and Valerie are now in the front line of those attacking the Wikileaks founder.

Regardless of the politics, this movie is entertaining enough to pass the watch test despite some dodgy hand-held photography. Near the end Valerie has a meeting with a very senior CIA officer glimpsed earlier, on a park bench in front of the White House. This man, played by Bruce McGill, bears a remarkable physical resemblance to the then director of the CIA, George Tenet. He warns her that she and Joe are up against the most powerful men in the world and asks her to stay silent for the sake of the agency. Valerie points out the agency won't even give her family any protection against death threats, to which Tenet, if that's who it's meant to be, merely shrugs his shoulders. What are the film makers trying to say here - that the agency doesn't look after its own?

Both Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame were patriots and, I believe, from Republican backgrounds. This did not bother the leakers who clearly couldn't care less who they hurt in the propaganda battle over the Iraqi invasion they were determined to launch. This film is based on two books by Joe and Valerie so I suppose it is a somewhat partisan account. Nevertheless it is hard to imagine a film treatment justifying what was done to them. George Bush in his memoirs mentions the Libby pardon issue but is otherwise silent on who did what. Never mind, his place in history as one of the lesser presidents is assured.

One of the major events that President George W. Bush will undoubtedly be remembered for in history will be his decision to declare war on Iraq in 2003. If we recall back to early 2003 when the administration was laying out its reasons for invading Iraq, the one most marketed to the American public was the idea that Saddam Hussein was in the process of creating chemical or nuclear weapons, which he would then give to terrorists who could then use them to attack American cities. Of course, soon after the war began it was discovered that these weapons either never existed or no longer existed, and to this day no one in the CIA or federal government has been able to explain how the intelligence community could have gotten it so wrong.

"Fair Game" places itself right in the middle of these controversial events between 2002 and 2004, and is told through the eyes of CIA Agent Valerie Plame (played very convincingly by Naomi Watts) and her husband, United Nations Ambassador Joe Wilson (played fiercely by the always great Sean Penn). The film's story follows how Plame goes from patriotic CIA agent diligently doing her job overseas to suddenly having her identity made public after her husband uncovered false information about a nuclear development sale between Iraq and Niger. This false information about a uranium sale between these two countries is important because it was implied as factual when Bush was listing information about Iraq during his State of The Union Speech in early 2003.

As the film starts, Plame and Wilson appear to be a very loving couple with a very strong marriage - they even have 2 small children who live with them in the D.C. area. Plame is busy traveling covertly to countries in The Middle East to shake her fist at people whom might have ties to terrorists, while Wilson is back at home, often finding himself in heated arguments with friends at the dinner table whom hold a different opinions from his own. Both Plame and Wilson appear to be relatively non-political civilians working peacefully and dutifully for the federal government - until the Bush administration decides that the country should invade Iraq. After Wilson criticizes the administration's faulty information publicly, Plame is then fired from her job, and much of the rest of the film focuses on how the couple's marriage is stressed because of what is transpiring all over the media. People harass them often when they go out, as Wilson makes rounds on the media circuit to try to restore his name. The film has a little bit of a soap-operish feel to it during the 2nd half in that it is mostly focused on the couple's relationship, but the acting performances by Watts and Penn are just so sharp that they make up for some of the film's small flaws when it comes to storytelling. There is also a small subplot involving a family in Iraq connected with Plame's counter-proliferation efforts that should have been either developed more or left out entirely, as that is the weakest part of the film - but fortunately those scenes are relatively few in the entire film.

Aside from the acting, another of the film's strengths is how it never gets too preachy towards the Bush administration, but rather focuses on the facts of what unfairly happened to Plame and Wilson from their own points of view. In fact, no actor plays Bush or Cheney in the film - we only see a few clips of the real Bush and Cheneys giving speeches on TV screens for a matter of seconds. Scooter Libby (portrayed a bit villainously by David Andrews) is seen in a few short scenes as a swindler who tries to convince CIA employees into manipulating the intelligence the way he sees it, but his characterization is very subtle, rather than as an in your face bad guy. Doug Liman's direction is also fairly fast-paced to make sure the film never gets too bogged down in pointless scenes. Even though it is very talky and dialogue-driven, the narrative keeps moving forward at a crisp pace - at least if audience members are adults without ADD (and I think it's pretty fair to say that this movie isn't marketed for the Transformers or Twilight crowd...) The film generally works very well both as an entertaining drama, spy thriller, and an educational lesson. Moreover, it's an intelligent reminder to the public of how people in positions in power in government will often stop at nothing to achieve their desired goals, even if that means illegally abusing their power through misinformation, manipulation, and character assassination. As citizens we should constantly be questioning our leaders and their motives, as well as keeping them honest and holding them accountable whenever they they violate our trust.

On a final note, I have to say that I find it very refreshing to see a film like this that has a woman in a very intelligent leading role, rather than how Hollywood films usually stereotype females in formulaic romantic comedies. It seems like women in major roles usually have their sappy characters obsessing about trying to find a man and buying shoes, with some slapstick and comedy at the dinner table with their parents thrown in as well (a.k.a. chick flicks). It's either that or the female characters get almost zero screen time, where they are relegated to simply being the cute girlfriend sidekick. It's nice to see movies like this allow womens' dramatic acting talents to shine and allow us to see them as complex, real characters.

Valerie Plame Wilson (Naomi Watts) is a woman with double life: she is the wife of the former Ambassador Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) and mother of two children. But she is also and efficient CIA Operations Officer working in the Nonproliferation Center and in charge of several operations.

In 2003, when Bush administration manipulates the information relative to massive destruction weapons to justify the invasion of Iraq, Joe Wilson writes an article in the New York Times criticizing the government and telling that the intelligence research had been manipulated. In reprisal, the government leaks Valerie's identity to discredit Joe, affecting their professional and private lives and almost destroying their marriage.

"Fair Game" is a bold film about the life of Valerie Plame Wilson, who has had her life destroyed by Bush administration in part of the farce about the existence of massive destruction weapons in Iraq to justify the invasion of that nation. But it seems that later the Wilson family wrote two books and won lawsuits against members of the government and they might have resolved their lives at least financially speaking.

The film glances also at the lives of Iraqi scientists that trusted on Valerie and were murdered by the Iraqi secret service, but does not show the fate of the civilian population that had their country bombed and invaded due to a farce. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Jogos de Poder" ("Power Game")

"When did the question move from 'Why are we going to war?' to 'Who is this man's wife?'"

Fair Game takes the huge media storm of a few years ago surrounding the leaked identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, and focuses on the strain placed on her and her family by the intentional exposure of her identity by government officials in retaliation for her husband's infamous New York Times op-ed piece. 

Movies based on actual, heavily politically-charged events usually aren't my thing, but Naomi Watts as Valerie and Sean Penn as her husband really do an excellent job of conveying this serious, and at times troubling, story. Watts portrays Plame as an intelligent and capable woman who is easy to sympathize with. As she's effectively blocked out from her job at the CIA and her personal life begins to swiftly unravel, she keeps a steely resolve that's wholly believable. And while Sean Penn doesn't have to stretch far for his character, he also makes him feel like a genuine person. Great acting from them both to compliment the solid script. 

Anyone even casually interested in the Valerie Plame scandal should check this out, as it's a pretty darn good (and thought-provoking) adaptation of a dark time in our country's recent history.