Film Review: Sean Penn, Naomi Watts Revive Valerie Plame in ‘Fair Game’

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CHICAGO – The key line in “Fair Game,” a distillation of Valerie Plame’s outing as a CIA operative in 2003, is intoned by character actor Bruce McGill, in a scene reminiscent of the “Mr. X” moment in the “JFK” movie. Pointing to the White House and the Bush Administration, he simply says, “there are the most powerful men in the history of the world.”

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 4.0/5.0
Rating: 4.0/5.0

Naomi Watts gives an electric performance in the true story as Valerie Plame, a pawn in a political game where the truth is countered by the destruction of career and reputations. Sean Penn is her husband Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who dares to take on the prickly Bush Administration by countering the president’s State of the Union Address and his infamous words, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

Plame is a life-long CIA operative, working undercover on various fact finding missions around the world. She is given the assignment to investigate nuclear scientists in Iraq, to ascertain whether Saddam Hussein is building the infamous weapons of mass destruction. She enlists an Iraqi expatriate and physician (Liraz Charhi) to go in country to gather intelligence from her brother, a former Iraqi nuke expert. In the midst of this investigation, her tight lid becomes undone.

Her husband Joe Wilson also occasionally works for the CIA. His fact finding mission was to explore the possibility that the African country of Niger was in fact selling “yellow cake” uranium to Saddam Hussein (yellow cake being a nuke ingredient). This fact would solidify the argument that Iraq is a nuclear threat and must be stopped by military force by the USA. What Joe Wilson finds is nothing.

The Bush Administration pushes forward with its quest. Vice President Dick Cheney is pushing the CIA harder to get the intel that will make the case. Words like “mushroom cloud” starts popping up on news outlets from administration officials, in an eerie coordinated effort. President Bush makes his State of the Union remarks. The United States invades Iraq.

Four months after the invasion, Joseph Wilson wrote an op-ed in the New York Times entitled “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.” One week later conservative columnist Robert Novak, attributing a leak from the White House, outed Wilson’s wife Valerie Plame as an agent for the CIA. Her missions were suspended, and her family became targets.

”Fair Game” opens for a limited release in Chicago on November 5th. Check local listings for show times and locations. Featuring Naomi Watts, Sean Penn, Ty Burrell, Noah Emmerichm, Liraz Charhi and Bruce McGill,. Screenplay by Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth, directed by Doug Liman. Rated “PG-13”

StarContinue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Fair Game”

Facing Off: Naomi Watts as Valerie Plame and Sean Penn as Joe Wilson in ‘Fair Game’
Facing Off: Naomi Watts as Valerie Plame and Sean Penn as Joe Wilson in ‘Fair Game’
Photo credit: Melinda Sue Gordon for © Warner Bros. Pictures

StarContinue reading for Patrick McDonald’s full review of “Fair Game”

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