Fair Game (Review)

It’s just a single sentence, but it sent shockwaves across the country. “Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.” There it is. By the time that sentence was printed in the pages of the Washington Post, the CIA career of Valerie Plame was essentially over. She was revealed as a covert agent to everyone she knew. Sure, her family may have known, but her friends did not. She was mobbed by reporters, and stayed mum on the subject for a long period of time. Her husband, Joseph Wilson, did not stand aside, but instead fought the story head on. The new film Fair Game by Doug Liman, retells these events with almost military precision.

The first act of Fair Game deals with Plame’s life pre-leak. Played by Naomi Watts, she is assigned to investigate a possible nuclear program in Iraq, and eventually they ask if her husband (Sean Penn) could go down to Niger to investigate whether or not a sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq could have taken place. Wilson determines that it’s a near impossibility. Many disagree, including one Richard Cheney. After the United States invades Iraq, Wilson writes a column for The New York Times entitled “What I Didn’t Find in Africa”, which said that Iraq, in fact, had no weapons of mass destruction. The article causes enough of an uproar to warrant a response from the administration. It comes eight days later in the form of the article by Robert Novak, and suddenly Valerie Plame’s identity was out in the open. The dogs had been set loose.

Doug Liman’s vérité approach well suits the material, avoiding the usual Hollywood gloss and instead planting the viewer right in the heart of the events we already knew happened. However, they are presented in a new light that engrosses the audience. This is not an action film, but it is packed with intensity, creating a world which we recognize as our own. The closest the film comes to action is a brilliant scene in which a character drives through the war torn streets of Iraq.

The film’s great triumph is its ability to treat both Plame and Wilson as equals. Most films depict the man as the one on the mission while the woman sits at home yearning for her husband to stop that infernal work so there can be more family game nights or something. Here the tension develops because of Plame’s love of country contrasted with Wilson’s thirst for justice. After the leak, Wilson goes on a media blitz that would make Balloon Boy’s family proud. He goes from news station to news station, newspaper to newspaper, calling for the heads of Karl Rove and “Scooter” Libby. In a way, the film does not romanticize his idealism. While some get behind him, others call him a traitor. His wife does not want to appear needy for attention, and she mostly hides away, fearing the backlash. Her husband is out tossing daggers, and she’s facing the consequences.

Fair Game is far from unbiased, but to a degree it tells it all with brutal realism. It keeps its distance from the government side and focuses on the impact the story had on the Plame-Wilson family itself. They felt wronged by a government that only wished to divert attention from the war in Iraq, and they were mobbed by the media. Suddenly people forgot about the real story and instead focused on this CIA agent who was exposed.

I enjoyed Fair Game as much as I’ve enjoyed any political drama in the past several years. Only a few flaws keep it from absolute greatness, including a closing speech by Wilson that is a bit too on the nose, but otherwise this is a fine piece of filmmaking. (Not to mention it features what might be my favorite opening title sequence of the year.) The performances by Watts and Penn are completely and utterly real, depicting a couple that is nearly torn apart by forces beyond their control. Wilson’s obsession with fighting back nearly spins out of control, while Plame, who has spent her entire life living in anonymity, reacts like a deer in the headlights.

This film is equally enthralling and, in its own way, a bit frightening. It doesn’t pretend that “the good guys” won, but instead says that Plame was the victim of a government which would let nothing get between them and the war they so desperately wanted. They got screwed over by the machine, but it’s up to Wilson to make sure that they don’t go down fighting. You knew the “who” and the “what” already, but Fair Game fills in between the lines in exhilarating fashion. It’s a film which lets the story tell itself, warts and all.

Rating:  (out of 4)