Fair Game.

Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame.

Doug Liman’s (The Bourne Identity 2002) latest movie is a biographical thriller based on two memoirs, Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House written by Valerie Plame and the former United States diplomat Joseph C Wilson The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife CIA Identity: A Diplomat’s Memoir. Fair Game (2010) stars Naomi Watts as Plame and Sean Penn as her husband Joseph C Wilson. It’s retells the story of the outing of Plame, a former United States CIA Operations Officer, by the Washington Post after her husband questioned the White House’s use of evidence on the alleged existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. 

Naomi Watts as Plame.

In late 2001 Valerie Plame is appointed to manage the CIA’s Joint Task Force on Iraq, focusing on counter proliferation intelligence gathering. In late February 2002 Wilson travelled to Niger at the behest of the CIA to investigate their alleged sale of uranium to Iraq, although Wilson finds no evidence his report is used to confirm the British claim’s that the Iraqis are building nuclear weapons. Based on this British/American interpretation troops enter Iraq. Its when Wilson publishes his article in the New York Times exposing the distortion of his findings to serve the war mongers case that his wife is exposed publically as a CIA agent something even the couples closest friends were unaware of.

Sean Penn as Wilson.

This familiar fact-based drama has been converted into a taut, and for the most part interesting, political thriller with a great performance from Watts whose resemblance to the real Plame is uncanny. Sean Penn gives a great interpretation of a man of principal along with all the smouldering anger that’s involved. A very believable interpretation of these shadowy events. The film won the Freedom of Expression Award from the National Board of Review.