Fair Game
2010
**½
Director: Doug Liman
Cast: Naomi Watts, Sean Penn, Noah Emmerich, Ty Burrell, Sam Shepard, Bruce McGill, Khaled El Nabawy
When diplomat Joseph C. Wilson reveals that the Bush administration manipulated his intelligence report to justify war in Iraq, the White House retaliates by exposing Wilson's wife Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. Doug Liman's fact-based story is based on the couple's respective books, Fair Game by Plame and The Politics of Truth by Wilson. The film provides an interesting historical document but, thanks to a muddled script, never becomes a particularly captivating drama. The first half makes a noble attempt to illustrate the human cost of war on the US military and the Iraqi civilian population. In the second half, it becomes a story of whether the marriage of the wronged couple can survive the media attention.
