Fair Game Review

• 6th Jul 2011

Doug Liman’s stellar biopic Fair Game owes a lot to its real-life source material – the story of former CIA agent Valerie Plame and husband Joseph C. Wilson. Plame’s life was thrown into turmoil following the leaking by the White House of her CIA status as a consequence of Wilson’s article refuting the Government’s claim that Iraq had purchased uranium in the run-up to the second gulf war.

There’s a lack of preachiness to Liman’s film that’s refreshing – where the story could have easily been wrapped up in an overt anti-war message, Liman opts instead to focus on the personal consequences of the events on his protagonists. Instead of attempting to crowbar in a position on the Iraq war, Liman uses the story of Plame and Wilson’s struggle to explore more universal themes of adversity and right and wrong.

Acclaimed playwright Jez Butterworth’s script is excellent, the dialogue zips along, seldom weighed down by exposition or clumsy emphasis on historical context (an occupational hazard with biopics). The characters are appropriately believable and subtly fleshed out.

As always, Penn is terrific; perhaps his performance as a committed liberal owes much to his real-life activism; either way he steals all of his scenes, brimming with righteous ire. Watts does excellently too and the pair have no trouble whipping up a convincing chemistry as husband and wife.

Adam Richardson