Those are some of the "lovely" compliments Valerie Plame received after her almost two decade career as an agent with the CIA came to an end, when her cover was blown and identity revealed. This was the aftermath and consequence of her husband's, Joe Wilson ex-ambassador and career diplomat with the State Department, op-ed piece in the Washington Post and other media outlets in early 2003 after the start of the Iraq War. Wilson's now famous words "What I didn't find in Africa" started an article (and ultimately a firestorm of controversy) which was a rebuke to the Bush Administration and what he perceived as the lies perpetrated by the Administration and used as the principal reasons and grounds to invade Iraq, namely that Saddam Hussein possessed enough materials and a sufficiently developed arms program so as to develop fairly sophisticated nuclear and other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, thus representing a clear and present danger to the US itself, as well as its interests and allies in the region! Wilson himself had been asked by both the State Department and the CIA (prior to the invasion of Iraq) to undertake a trip to the country of Niger in Africa and establish whether or not Iraq had indeed purchased materials (yellow cake uranium) from them in order to build a nuclear bomb. Wilson did not find anything and his report reflected that, a fact that the Bush Administration and other parties chose to conveniently ignore, which became quite apparent in the 2003 State Of The Union Address when Bush mentioned that Iraq had purchased yellow cake uranium from Africa (not mentioning the name of the country). Wilson was furious...and the rest is as they say history!
This is the main focus of Doug Lyman's new crafty political thriller, "Fair Game" (no not the 1995 movie with Cindy Crawford and William Balwin) starring Sean Penn as "Joe Wilson" and Naomi Watts as "Valerie Plame", both real, living persons if anybody wonders. The movie is a concise and straightforward study of those events, albeit somewhat brief and artistically enhanced. I say enhanced because the movie is mainly based on Valerie Plame's own book-account of these events, titled...you guessed it..."Fair Game". Other books and sources were also used as to thicken the source material and give the script more weight. One of the main problems is that Plame's book was heavily censored and redacted by the CIA due to a confidentiality agreement all current and ex-CIA agents (Plame left the CIA in 2006) sign, stipulating that they will not reveal any secrets (punisheable by law) and any and all materials published by any of them (agents) may be vetted by the CIA or other security organs. So when watching this movie I could not help but wonder how much creative licence was taken with the characters and events, since the whole truth and full account of the story will more than likely stay buried for decades to come.
Penn and Watts are the heart of the movie, and they deliver convincing performances, as does the rest of the cast. Lyman (as he has shown in the past) deftly handles the characters and moves the story along not really compromising on the style and substance of its characters and subject matter, but also clearly not hiding the pro-bias it has for Wilson and Plame, even if it is a righteous one. Yet strangely Penn and Watts are also the weakness of the movie. When the end-credits roll, Watts is replaced by the real life Valerie Plame testifying in front of Congress...and you know what? I find the real-life Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson a lot more interesting...and find myself asking what is the point of having this movie? Though it perhaps explores more private and intimate aspects of this whole story, it still doesn't seem to break any new ground, and I am sorry to say, it preaches to the choir, those on the left idealize Wilson and Plame, those on the right vilify them, and the majority in the middle is left scratching their heads! This movie won't do much to change that unfortunately...hence the lower rating! Still, it is quite frightening to see how people who, at least in my opinion, gave such tremendous, useful and faithful service to their country, can be so thoroughly undermined and utterly destroyed, for having had the stones to stand up and tell the truth when they perceived that "the ends-justify-the means" fast and loose game played by the Bush Administration was leading the country down a path of woes (now we know better since hindsight is 20/20). I wish the role of Scooter Libby, Richard Armitage, Karl Rove, Robert Novak and Dick Chenney himself was given more attention, since they were the ones that fuelled the machinations against Plame and Wilson. The movie need not be applied to the United States alone, its topic is one that has universal appeal and can easily be translated to other countries.
This movie serves as an (imperfect) lesson, of what happens when paranoia and fear trump truth, reason and logic, and are used to push the agenda of a very narrow-minded and erroneous but highly resolute and focused elite. It furthermore shows the fact that justice is not really blind but it can see when it so chooses, since the guilty parties in this whole affair came out of it virtually unscathed... This is also a cautionary tale as to what occurs when zealots, sycophants and demagogues are put in charge and given a large megaphone, while a less-than-well informed and gullible public and a castrated media buy what they hear hook-line-and-sinker!
This is the main focus of Doug Lyman's new crafty political thriller, "Fair Game" (no not the 1995 movie with Cindy Crawford and William Balwin) starring Sean Penn as "Joe Wilson" and Naomi Watts as "Valerie Plame", both real, living persons if anybody wonders. The movie is a concise and straightforward study of those events, albeit somewhat brief and artistically enhanced. I say enhanced because the movie is mainly based on Valerie Plame's own book-account of these events, titled...you guessed it..."Fair Game". Other books and sources were also used as to thicken the source material and give the script more weight. One of the main problems is that Plame's book was heavily censored and redacted by the CIA due to a confidentiality agreement all current and ex-CIA agents (Plame left the CIA in 2006) sign, stipulating that they will not reveal any secrets (punisheable by law) and any and all materials published by any of them (agents) may be vetted by the CIA or other security organs. So when watching this movie I could not help but wonder how much creative licence was taken with the characters and events, since the whole truth and full account of the story will more than likely stay buried for decades to come.
Penn and Watts are the heart of the movie, and they deliver convincing performances, as does the rest of the cast. Lyman (as he has shown in the past) deftly handles the characters and moves the story along not really compromising on the style and substance of its characters and subject matter, but also clearly not hiding the pro-bias it has for Wilson and Plame, even if it is a righteous one. Yet strangely Penn and Watts are also the weakness of the movie. When the end-credits roll, Watts is replaced by the real life Valerie Plame testifying in front of Congress...and you know what? I find the real-life Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson a lot more interesting...and find myself asking what is the point of having this movie? Though it perhaps explores more private and intimate aspects of this whole story, it still doesn't seem to break any new ground, and I am sorry to say, it preaches to the choir, those on the left idealize Wilson and Plame, those on the right vilify them, and the majority in the middle is left scratching their heads! This movie won't do much to change that unfortunately...hence the lower rating! Still, it is quite frightening to see how people who, at least in my opinion, gave such tremendous, useful and faithful service to their country, can be so thoroughly undermined and utterly destroyed, for having had the stones to stand up and tell the truth when they perceived that "the ends-justify-the means" fast and loose game played by the Bush Administration was leading the country down a path of woes (now we know better since hindsight is 20/20). I wish the role of Scooter Libby, Richard Armitage, Karl Rove, Robert Novak and Dick Chenney himself was given more attention, since they were the ones that fuelled the machinations against Plame and Wilson. The movie need not be applied to the United States alone, its topic is one that has universal appeal and can easily be translated to other countries.
This movie serves as an (imperfect) lesson, of what happens when paranoia and fear trump truth, reason and logic, and are used to push the agenda of a very narrow-minded and erroneous but highly resolute and focused elite. It furthermore shows the fact that justice is not really blind but it can see when it so chooses, since the guilty parties in this whole affair came out of it virtually unscathed... This is also a cautionary tale as to what occurs when zealots, sycophants and demagogues are put in charge and given a large megaphone, while a less-than-well informed and gullible public and a castrated media buy what they hear hook-line-and-sinker!