Fair Game (2010)

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This was okay, not as interesting as it should have been based on the subject matter and a bit of a slow burn if I'm honest. The camera work is also jerky -as this is meant to be a sort of docudrama but I just found that aspect distracting. The story itself is also told in little snippets of events so that it jumps around and skips ahead with bits of stories. Superb performances from Naomi Watts and Sean Penn are ultimately what saves this and makes it at all watchable.Based on true events, this is a political drama that follows Valerie Plame, a CIA agent whose identity is leaked by the government after her husband writes an article criticizing the Bush administration. With her cover blown, Valarie struggles to save what's left of her career while her diplomat husband creates even more controversy.The storytelling here is angry for the most part and that comes through even with the undeveloped characters - I never did get a feel for anyone involved here. Despite everything though this still managed to be somewhat absorbing and by the end I did find myself invested in their story. I liked seeing the real Valarie in the final scene, giving her testimony. 7/21/15

Could a government be so-shortsightedly stupid as to out one of its own special agents as a punishment for her husband offering them some advice they didn't want to hear? Apparently so, when the government was the G.W. Bush administration, and what was at stake was the justification of a war in Iraq that the government had already decided to undertake regardless. That story is told in this film; but the movie is limited, because almost inevitably, it paints Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame as heroic, truth-telling victims - which may be true, but the scope for real drama is limited. At times in the story, when events are putting a strain on their marriage, the couple seem to be fighting over the principle of their two different visions of the noblest way to respond to the crisis they've been plunged into. The greatest tragedy, the betrayal of Plame's agents in the field, is relatively underplayed in this Washington-centred story. Sean Penn as Wilson (Plame's husband) plays his role as a self-righteous prig (in a way that I don't think is intended); Naomi Watts seems too super-cool as Plame to be believable, until the film cuts to actual footage of the real Plame giving testimony before Congress, and the likeness turns out to be exact. The film's worth watching if you want to learn the details of the scandal (and you should); but it's something less than Shakespearian in the telling.

(43%) Sean Penn's strong supporting performance is a plus point in this so-so political drama retelling the events in the run-up to the Iraq war that in turn has grown into a bit of a ridiculous farce. You really can't help but chuckle as Bush, using total balderdash "intelligence" created by one of Tony Blair's cronies, points the finger at little Niger for handing over nuclear weapons to Saddam. And if that was the case, which it wasn't, then where exactly did Niger get them from? Well chances are if the stuff actually existed in the first place it would have been originally created by Russia, or maybe China, and as they can't be easily pushed around as much lets quickly move on and concentrate on picking away at the little guys. Watching this now it really does raise the question how anyone, never mind millions and millions of people, ever fell for such nonsense. Besides the real-life political stupidity there's not a great deal to be offered here, and anyone with low levels of interest in such things will find this a hard sit.

This microcosm of the routine abuse of power that took place under the Bush presidency is a story that deserves to be told over and over again but it deserves a much better vehicle. Watts and Penn do their best but are let down by formulaic script and direction. Supporting players are drawn from the usual pool and the result is an overpriced TV movie that itself forms part of the ongoing conspiracy theory. As an outsider (I'm British living by choice in Los Angeles), I can't help comparing America's treatment of Bush Jr. with that of Nixon and concluding that America prefers stupid Presidents, irrespective of the consequences of their actions.