Fair Game DVD

Fair Game is a film based on the real-life experiences of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative whose career and marriage were severely impacted when her covert identity was revealed. Valerie leads an investigation into the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq while her husband, diplomat Joe Wilson, becomes involved in the investigation. When the administration ignores his findings and uses the issue to support the call to war, Joe writes an editorial and ignites controversy.

The skullduggery surrounding the Valerie Plame affair is already the stuff of an espionage thriller. Naomi Watts plays Plame, a longtime CIA agent whose classified status was exposed by columnist Robert Novak in 2003. The movie can't answer all the questions about who wanted Plame exposed, but at the least it could create a convincing piece of Beltway intrigue. Fair Game steers in the direction of domestic melodrama, as the marriage between Plame and Wilson is severely tested by the unwanted notoriety. It's not that the actors are unable to bring this situation to life; Penn is forceful, while Watts is somewhat frozen by her character's mixed, ambivalent reactions. The main problem is simply that these relationship scenes tip the balance, as though the Plame-Wilson marriage carried greater weight than allegations of weapons of mass destruction and the ramp-up to the Iraq War. Meanwhile, director Doug Liman tries to whip up some spy-movie "energy" with lots of noise and cutting, all of which feels increasingly hollow as the movie goes along. A calmer, cleaner documentary on the same subject might do a superior job someday.

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