The film begins with a woman named Valerie Plame. She works as an intelligence officer in the CIA but is already hiding her career from family and friends. One day, the woman discovered that her identity had been leaked by the government because of an article in a newspaper. In the end, Valerie's professional life and personal life have been shattered.
Gripping real-life spy movie Fair Game, a sober and sobering account of the double-dealing of the Bush White House in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq.
It should be gripping stuff, but Liman combines too much information with too much pontificating to create an uneasy blend of slow-paced political thriller and family drama.
Another of Participant Media's earnest, well-meaning, well-made, but rather dry efforts that definitely do their job in conveying the intended message but not so much as engaging drama.
Naomi Watts settles for semi-inscrutability while Penn, engaging as he is, is encouraged, particularly toward the end, to deliver his performance from the lectern.
If the filmmakers had skimmed off some of the exposition from the first half, and tightened it up in order to get to the main part of the story faster, it would have worked a lot better.
Fair Game" is such a brutal and personal testimony to the consequences of dirty politics that it often feels too ugly to be true. Unfortunately, it is.
For every spycraft scene, every illustration of the deadly blowback from the leak that Liman dramatizes, the movie has half a dozen scenes of a delicately balanced home life turned on its head by a government bent on destroying one of its critics.
This isn't a message movie, per se, but a strong point of view comes through regardless: In the battle of principles vs. politics, politics always win.
