DVD Reviews

Fair Game – Blu-ray Review

By June L. Apr 7, 2011, 14:31 GMT

Plame\'s status as a CIA agent was revealed by White House officials allegedly out to discredit her husband after he wrote a 2003 New York Times op-ed piece saying that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq.  ...more

From headlines that shocked the world comes Fair Game, the story of Valerie Plame and her husband Joe Wilson.  Ms. Plame was revealed to be a CIA agent by sources attributed to the White House, in retaliation for her husband’s New York Times opinion/editorial column. 

In this piece Mr. Wilson said the Bush administration tinkered with intelligence reports concerning Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and engineered the scenario justifying the U.S. invasion.

Sometimes there are things that happen in the modern world, in a supposedly civilized and intelligent society, that simply defy all reason.  When people first learned of Ms. Plame’s “outing” as an agent, and the reasons allegedly behind the action, there was disbelief.  Wasn’t the government supposed to support truth, and seek out justice and preserve peace?  What were they thinking? 

In this dramatization of Valerie Plame’s memoir Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House, audiences see the before and after lives of Ms. Plame and Mr. Wilson, and are privy to what was lost through the mean-spirited actions of the couple’s opposition. 

It is a breathtaking story, with characters on all levels of politics and life affected by an act of what appears to be simply revenge.  Even after several years it still chills the soul to think that people in power with the charge of making decisions for the whole country could do this to fellow countrymen. 

Naomi Watts and Sean Penn star as Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson.  Ms. Watts has the correct blend of polish and strength that makes the viewer believe she could run covert operations in the Mid East and come home and cook dinner.  Sean Penn as Joe Wilson is an intelligent man with a barely controlled temper that is flaring at the ignorance and fear he sees around him. 

As a diplomat, having served as an ambassador to Africa during the Clinton administration, he is tapped by the CIA to return to Niger to verify or dispel the intelligence that the country has sold uranium to Iraq.  He finds no indication of such a deal, and when the Bush administration invades Iraq, he feels he must tell the truth, so he writes the piece “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.” 

In a retaliation piece for the paper, Valerie Plame is named and identified as a CIA agent by Robert Novack, and everything begins to fall apart.  Fast paced, and thrilling, viewers will be on the edge of their seats watching Valerie’s operations crumble, and the couple being battered by the media.  We may never know all the truth of this event, but Fair Game tells a good story and is worth watching.

Fair Game is presented on single disc, with a running time of 108 minutes.  The special feature for this edition is an audio commentary for the film with Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, which adds both information and more depth to the production. 

Regardless of political viewpoints audiences will be intrigued by the story, and impressed with the acting.  It is an amazing if unfortunate turn of events, but Plame and Wilson battle through and survive.

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