corrosion-2

(2012-04-27 05:54:00)

Great Game

Fair Game follows in the tradition of All The President's Men aspresenting a probing look into an important political issue in the formof a crackling thriller. Director Doug Liman uses his BourneIdentity/Mr & Mrs Smith skills to move the true story of exposure ofValerie Plame (Naomi Watts), the wife of US senator Joe Wilson (SeanPenn), as a CIA undercover agent by the Bush Administration atbreakneck speed. Plame's research based on her contacts in Iraq had putserious doubts on the existence of WMD in Iraq, which was not in linewith White House's view point. They thus considered her "fair game" fordiscrediting and public exposure. Fair Game is fascinating for allthose interested in the mechanism of power and use/abuse of it; and isalso a riveting piece of film making. In my view it's Liman's best filmto date.

Joe Williams

(2012-04-26 22:13:16)

The blind-siding of Valerie Plame wasn't fair and wasn't a game, but this cinematic outcome is a touchdown for true patriots.

Adam Smith

(2012-04-24 08:53:50)

The movie's driving force is Watts, whose depiction of a professional spook attempting to negotiate a political minefield as well as hold her stressed-out marriage together is thoroughly convincing.

(2012-04-23 22:40:16)

Fair Game

This review is from: Fair Game (DVD) Fast paced, well acted, and revealed more about Ms. Plames' mission than the book. The condition of the cd was verry good. I wish it was longer. I bought it "used" from Amazon.

David H. Schleicher

(2012-04-20 06:01:50)

Compelling Domestic Game

If you view Doug Liman's "Fair Game" outside of the politics andcontroversy around what actually happened, what you get is a solidlydirected, well scripted, fantastically acted domestic drama where thewife just happens to be a spy.As outed CIA-agent Valerie Plame and her diplomat husband Joe Wilson,Naomi Watts and Sean Penn are riveting. They are two professionals atthe top of their game, and they play off each other exceptionally wellwith Watts cool and collected even under the greatest of stress, andPenn fuming and raging against "the machine" that came crashing down ontheir marriage. With the focus on their relationship, it makes for acompelling drama about two people fighting to stay together.Liberal bias? That sounds like conservative family values to me.Check out full reviews at theschleicherspin.com

Brandon Fibbs

(2012-04-20 02:02:56)

Fair Game is a detailed, habitually accurate and surprisingly moving film. Like the documentary The Tillman Story earlier this summer, you will likely leave Fair Game fairly angry.

Susan Granger

(2012-04-16 02:06:29)

It's too little, too late - sanctimonious when it could have been a far more effective expose of political malfeasance and corruption.

Michael Phillips

(2012-04-15 18:11:08)

Liman's sensibility isn't sophisticated enough to tease out the nuances of what must be a pretty interesting marriage; the movie is more about texture and surfaces and surface tensions. But it moves.

(2012-04-13 01:22:01)

JOE WILSON V. THE WHITE HOUSE ... Who Won?

FAIR GAME (2010) is the story of Valerie Plame Wilson (Naomi Watts), the outed CIA agent that seems to have been the powder-keg issue vis-ГѓВ -vis the Iraqi War. Directed by Doug Liman, FAIR GAME tells the story of a tiny part of Valerie's job, digs a bit deeper regarding her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson (a great Sean Penn), and what the government did to these two people, to say nothing of what they did to Valerie's live-ops, assets and the rest."If by not keeping quiet while someone spouts obnoxious crap makes you an a**hole, then I'm an a**hole ... " -Joe Wilson"You have to know why you're lying, and never forget the truth."-Valerie WilsonWe may not all recall the story of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, but this film will tell you all you need to know. We'll see her at work undercover with the CIA, we'll see Joe Wilson and his activism circa 2001, and we'll see the Bush Administration eat them both alive. Yet they fight, the truth is out, Scooter Libby takes the fall and as Wilson predicts, he got his sentence commuted by Bush. Karl Rove, as expected, also walked from a grand jury indictment.This grand performance by Naomi Watts punctuates the fact that this country's heroes are everyday type of people. At the end, Watts begins her testimony to the Committee on Government Oversight and Reform ... within seconds, TV footage of the real Valerie takes over, and it is MOVING.I loved seeing Penn standing before the Memorial Wall in the CIA with all its nameless charcoal stars commemorating the CIA fallen. It is highly significant. I also liked the way he shoots down loudmouths with withering, blistering one-liners; I was very moved when he began writing his famous article for the "New York Times", "What I Didn't Find in Africa" - the item that got him into so much hot water.Scooter Libby's vendetta ... Karl Rove's evil brainstorm ... the Bush Administration's lies and Condoleezza Rice appearing in a newscast spewing those lies as the administration's mouthpiece ... it's all here. I also loved the positive showing of MSNBC, and hearing an actor portraying Chris Matthews as he calls Joe to talk with him. MSNBC broke a lot of REAL news on this, and I like that it is showcased here. Mathhews does not appear as himself here, only an actor playing him is heard on the phone with Joe, but Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC was the first to contact the Wilson's to break the story and that is mentioned.Now for the bad: aside from Penn's grey streaks on occasion turning blond for some mysterious reason, his acting is pitch-perfect. At least, Penn seems perfect from what I've seen of former Ambassador Wilson. This film also takes the annoying tack of the bobble-head cinematography, as if the dialogue needs to be punctuated with bad camera work. I wish to the cinema gods that Hitchcock had not invented dialogue-on-top-of-dialogue, because the first 30 minutes of this is a lot of yelling on top of yelling.There are also too many muffled, swallowed or drowned-out lines of dialogue, and all I can say is take the sound man out back and beat the proverbial out of him! This film could have done with some slightly better pacing and less preaching at the audience, as is the wont of the left when they want to drive home a particular point. When I see this type of catastrophe, I get tired of the left blaming me: it feels personal after a while.There are two things we'll never know from this film: why are we in Iraq? And perhaps worse, why did everyone refer to Valerie as "Ms. Plame"? For all the bad, I deducted one star.With that off my chest, I'd say give this a couple of careful viewings and use your closed-captioning or subtitles. It is something every American should watch ... especially those who were in the Bush Administration.

(2012-04-12 09:42:43)

Entertaining

This movie was a pleasant surprise. I was surprised to learn it did relatively poorly at the box office. This is one that I plan to enjoy on multiple occasions.

valadas

(2012-04-11 07:08:13)

The famous WMD

Weapons of mass destruction yes. As everybody remembers this was thepretext the Bush (2) Administration found to wage war on Iraq, apretext later discovered to be totally false. Valerie Plane (NaomiWatts), a CIA agent (obviously later an ex-agent) and her husband theAmbassador to UN Joe Wilson (Sean Penn)(obviously later anex-ambassador) are caught in the fire while trying to establish thereal truth on a matter that is related to that pretext, a supposed saleof uranium by Niger to Iraq which never occurred but the Administrationneeds to pass as true to justify the war. They know the truth about itbecause they had precisely been investigating the facts related to itand don't want to cooperate in the big lie. They become the target ofthe Bush Administration which needs to crush them to prove its thesiswas right. A kind of David against Goliath fight ensues while publicopinion is poisoned by the media leading to call them traitors and evencommunists. This tremendous pressure upon the couple endangers eventheir marital harmony. The story is told in vivid images and dialoguesand the two main characters are very well performed by the two mainplayers. The cut is a sometimes stunning successions of scenes changingabruptly from one place to another: Washington, Amman, Cairo, Baghdad,the Niger, etc., continuously to and fro in a stirring rhythm. Amasterpiece indeed.

(2012-04-10 20:45:29)

Wow!

This review is from: Fair Game [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) This is sooooo a must see! Everyone needs to see what was going on behind the scenes as spinners worked feverishly trying to confuse us about the facts.

(2012-04-07 13:58:14)

It's happened before, and will happen again

This review is from: Fair Game (DVD) Very good acting by both Sean Penn and Naomi Watts. There are many questions about the Cheney administration that have to be answered. There's no closure for anyone until these question are answered. Ambassador Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame were two people who were deeply affected by the analysis to go to war done by the people in the Cheney administration. In this case, particularly in Joe Wilson's case, things just didn't add up. He KNEW that the information was not only cooked, it was completely fabricated. There's a lot more unsaid in this story, and countless others that occurred during the Cheney years. There's a reason he can't leave the US. I also recommend the Pentagon Papers, a fine movie dealing with the Ellsberg case. In both cases, the government attempted to lie to the American people in order to pursue a certain agenda involving American military involvement overseas. Ellsberg knew, as did Plame and Wilson, that our involvement was predicated upon complete fabrications.

Luke Y. Thompson

(2012-04-06 22:38:24)

A compelling drama that unfortunately will probably split audiences straight down partisan lines.

Tony Medley

(2012-04-04 22:56:39)

Ignoring the political bias of two leftwing filmmakers, Penn and Liman, this reverse roman ГЎ clef is a rip snorting political thriller, probably close to the truth.

(2012-04-04 15:23:16)

dishonest garbage

we knew sean penn was a loon, but when you consider the degree of the lies in the movie and also consider how relatively soon after the scandal this movie was made, it's shocking how much disregard the film shows the truth. as if there isn't detailed information all over the internet to refute the lies. no valerie plame story would be complete without dick armitage and it's almost as if he doesn't exist. so i guess this was a fun little dress up movie for sean penn and hopefully naomi watts isn't part of the leftist scum brigade in hollywood.

(2012-03-30 12:47:26)

Great acting from Watts ..... fair acting from Penn ..... but ......

Great acting from Naomi Watts.Fair to medium acting from Sean Penn (suffers from some excess). He usually does better.The story is of course loosely (VERY LOOSELY) based on recent events.The film suffers from the "Sean Penn Fanatical Preaching Obsession" he seems to have fallen into in recent years.He is so consumed by some of his political views he can't see straight at times it seems and it adversely affects his movie making.It seems he is only concerned with making political propoganda films these days at the exclusion of all else.That is fine if that is all he is interested in now, but don't be surprised if fewer and fewer people get too motivated to see his movies. I imagine that despite the good acting, this movie will go un-noticed and fade away into obscurity without too much attention or discussion.

Fernando F. Croce

(2012-03-30 05:05:16)

Sanctimonious, schematic, and so bereft of insight that it never notices the performative similarities between secret agents and married couples

(2012-03-21 19:59:52)

Pulsating Drama, Appropriate Timing

FAIR GAME serves several purposes; it is a thriller of a suspense movie that entertains, it addresses one of the most controversial aspects of American military action in years, and it dares to open the secret doors of the Bush Administration. Based on the book 'The Politics of Truth' by Joseph Wilson the film has been summarized as follows: 'Joseph Charles Wilson IV (born November 6, 1949) is a former United States diplomat best known for his 2002 trip to Niger to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase yellowcake uranium; his New York Times op ed piece, "What I Didn't Find in Niger"; and the subsequent "outing" of his wife Valerie Plame as a CIA agent.' and the book "Fair Game' by Valerie Plame. The books have been transformed into a bitingly vital screenplay by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth and the film is searingly directed by Doug Lyman.Why the film didn't enjoy a better success in the theaters is likely due to the still festering difference of opinion as to the pre-emptive war on Iraq, a war declared because of the 'evidence' that Iraq had Weapons of Mass destruction that is now approaching 10 years in activity despite the embarrassingly early declaration by that the war had been 'won' soon after declaration. What FAIR GAME offers is Wilson's defense of his wife Valerie Plame's role in the CIA and how the government dealt with the coverup and smoke screen and other shenanigans by Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and other White House officials who revealed Plame's status as a CIA agent and were 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.The actors are consistently superb throughout the large cast - Naomi Watts as Valerie Plame, Sean Penn as Joe Wilson, Bruce McGill as Jim Pavitt, Adam LeFevre as Karl Rove, David Andrews as Scooter Libby - and the many film clips of President Bush's televised speeches and statements from VP Dick Cheney et al add credence to the atmosphere. It is a film about the value of truth and as such it makes us all think more carefully about our current further involvement in the many battles currently being fought in the countries of the Middle East. There is a speech Joe Wilson gives to his class at the end of the film that challenges his students to always defend democracy - the legacy of our Founding Fathers - and it is this speech that is the most compelling writing in the film. A fine cast delivers a compelling film and it is a film all Americans should see. Grady Harp, April 11

adamo100

(2012-03-21 09:17:17)

Painfully Slow After the first Hour

As a movie (not a historical documentary) this is so very boring.You the viewer, expect some chemistry to develop between the twocharacters but not. if you are looking to re-live history maybe youwill like it. The move seems to start strong but falls off about halfway through the picture. Not sure if the director had a lot shot andwas trying to squeeze in his justifications. Or if the movie was goingto be too short a run time so they filled it with "fluff shots" to makethe run time.This is not just one man's review. I went with four people to see thismovie. We were all looking at our watches waiting for it to be over.If you are looking for an entertaining movie, this is not the movie youare looking for.