Fair Game

What happens when one day fine day everyone gets to know that you are a spy? Based on the true story of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative whose cover was blown by the White House, Fair Game doesn’t really go in for the shock and awe but never falls short of engaging.

Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) is a CIA operative who balances covert operations across the world along with a very healthy suburban family life that is picture perfect with two kids and a husband. With the White House hell bent on attacking Iraq on the basis of the intel about its weapons of mass destruction, Plame gets her husband, Joe Wilson (Sean Penn), a former ambassador to an African nation, to go to Niger to investigate if the reports of a sale of yellow cake uranium to Iraq are true. Wilson concludes that such a sale never took place and even writes an article for the New York Times stating how the White House manipulated information to justify the attack on Iraq. The White House makes its move by not only revealing Plame’s identity but discredits Wilson’s claim by suggesting that he was compelled by his wife to tarnish the President. Plame and Wilson don’t see eye to eye on how to deal with the situation and while Plame wants to remain quite Wilson decides to fight for what is right. Finally Plame chooses to come clean with her story.

For a film whose premise is pretty basic the first half hour or so of Fair Game doesn’t really make any sense. Characters talk the talk and walk the walk in a very staccato manner without really adding anything substantial to the plot but some where along the way Fair Game suddenly makes sense. Once you catch on the film grips you and Doug Liman never really loses the tension or even the pace. What starts off a political thriller soon changes gears and becomes a taut drama when Wilson’s actions isolate Plame and even threaten their marriage.

Fair Game is blessed with a very convincing Naomi Watts at the center of it all. Her Plame never goes overboard and is so believable that at times she doesn’t really do anything that an actor would be inspired to; rather she plays Plame almost like routine. You realize how wonderfully restrained Watts is when in the final minutes of the film Doug Liman cuts to the real Plame’s C-Span testimony as the end-credits play. This reviewer has, much to his own chagrin, in the past has found Penn to be a very boring actor to say the least. Barring Carlito’s Way and Mystic River and maybe U-Turn to some extent no matter what character Penn embodies he comes across as someone who seems to tease the audience for no real reason. But this time around Penn keeps his emotions under check and even though he relies on the very conspicuous lines on his forehead to convey myriad emotions, Penn packs in a very credible performance.

Doug Liman’s trademark of realistic and almost documentary like execution that added great resonance to the Bourne series is at play here as well. Liberal use of handheld camera and the heady mix of politics with family drama keep you riveted to Fair Game even though it never really transcends to evoke a similar agitated reaction from the viewer that the actors portray. Fair Game seizes you but that’s largely thanks to Naomi Watts and Sean Penn.

Rating: 3/5

Cast: Naomi Watts, Sean Penn

Screenplay by: Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth based on the books by Joseph Wilson (The Politics of Truth) and Valerie Plame (Fair Game)

Directed by: Doug Liman

This review originally appeared in Buzz in Town

Image: www.wikipedia.com