Fair Game - Movie Review

Doug Liman, who was instrumental in giving the Top Movie Bourne Identity, is successful yet again in bringing out a winner in Fair Game. Based on two top selling books, Fair Game is a political thriller, set in the period of President Bush and involving his policies with regard to Iraq war and the political turmoil he had to face in his country. It spins the tale of back-stabbing, getting personal in political wars and breaking up of homes in order to get political mileage. In short, the movie is about the murkier games politicians play to achieve the end-result, where means are of no consequence.

Naomi Watts, the Top Movies actor, plays CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, who is married to diplomat Joe Wilson, played by Sean Penn, the star of many Top Movies, and is running undercover operation in the war torn Iraq. Unaware of her true identity, Joe Wilson is arduously campaigning against the Bush administration for the wrongs being done in Iraq and the sufferings of the US soldiers in the unnecessary war being fought in Iraq.

The political bickering get too hot for the Bush administration to handle, when Wilson, in an article written in New York Times, accuses the President of messing up the Iraq war on the Weapons of Mass Destruction issue. To save their own political careers, the top politicians take CIA into confidence and plan to cut down the towering image of Wilson. The scapegoat has to be Valerie and through her Wilson must be cut to size zero of his political career.

All the good work that Valerie has done in Iraq, from safeguarding the undercover American scientists working secretly in Iraq and busting many counter-espionage plans of the Iraqi intelligence, is forgotten by the greedy political top brass. The President launches a counter attack on Wilson in the Senate and is able to barely save his position. Then, in the discreet manner, that is a favorite with the CIA, Valerie is exposed and disgraced. A shattered Wilson is forced to lie low and Valerie is unable to save her broken home.

An out and out dialogue based movie, with a strong narrative and a taut screenplay, helps Liman in bringing out the best from his star cast. Both Naomi and Penn perfectly play their parts with constraint and successfully bring out the characters alive on the screen. The true story of Valerie has been brought out on the screen very effectively by Liman, without delving into the war scenes or field actions of Valerie. There's not much of action but the movie has an undercurrent of tension, which is unleashed by the director in the end. Definitely worth a visit to the theaters.