Although both based on a true story and overtly political, Fair Game deftly avoids the problems closely associated with both of those genres and proves to be a well-acting, expertly-directed, engaging political thriller.

Fair Game is the true story of Valerie Plame, a CIA spy whose identity was leaked to the press by the White House in retaliation for her husband’s anti-war op-ed in the New York Times. The Plame Affair, as it came to be called, garnered an enormous amount of press coverage and resulted in the indictment of Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff Scooter Libby. Typically, “based on a true story” films devolve into predictable feel-good stuff but this is not the case with this film. Instead, this real story only serves as the narrative which unfolds through restraint and tells its story with emotion not melodrama.

Naomi Watts and Sean Penn are the core of the movie as Valerie Plame and Joseph C. Wilson, the couple at the center of the story.  Both of their characters have two halves in a way. There’s the ordinary family side that we see at the beginning of the film in addition to the CIA operative and foreign policy expert parts of their characters.Watts and Penn portray their characters honestly as real people, which is key to this personal drama. Rather than focus on the high-level politics of the event, the film is all about these two people struggling to stay together in a time of such trial.

In this decade, director Doug Liman has established himself as one of the best in the smart spy action genre with The Bourne Identity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Jumper. With Fair Game, the director returns to themes he has explored before (specifically spies and couples) but tones down the action in exchange for more character development and dialogue-driven drama. This reverses some of the damage done by Jumper, which failed tremendously in terms of story, characters, and acting but delivered some good set pieces. Still, the film moves forward very quickly and never loses your attention. Using techniques perfected while directing action for this drama is interesting. At some points, however, the ever-so-subtly-shaking handheld camera feels out-of-place. With that being said, the film makes great use of camera work and even news clips to play out the story in the most engaging way possible.

The story of Valerie Plame spans continents and involves spies, a war, and a conspiracy but the film doesn’t feel too large. The tone of the film is reserved, yet engaging. The large story is told in detail, but you empathize with Plame and her husband and, at least for the first half of the film, forget about the politics involved.

Fair Game is still very much a political drama rather than an action thriller. The typical downfall of politically-themed movies, namely painfully obvious polemic , is avoided, however, by focusing on the characters involved. It all keeps coming down to that. In order to effectively weave such a tale of political intrigue the film must narrow its gaze and allow the characters themselves to take the audience along the ride with them. The movie definitely has something to say beyond the obvious anti-War on Terror sentiment. The main theme of the film is to stand up for what you believe in, don’t let injustice go unchecked. In fact, the final scene of the film consists of Sean Penn literally preaching to us, but you know what? I don’t mind it. Having this theme summarized for us at the end only highlighted how important that idea was to the filmmakers.

Fair Game is a fantastic change of pace of director Doug Liman, who rather than craft fantastic action sequences, maintains this engaging thriller with the help of two great performances and a tone that keeps the movie from devolving into partisan politics.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Want to see what the infamous Michael Moore has to say in his latest documentary? Well why not watch the entire thing here on Atomic Popcorn?

Moore’s latest piece is another open your eyes film.

“Slacker Uprising” takes place in the wake of “Fahrenheit 9/11,” during the run-up to the 2004 election, as I traveled for 42 days across America, visiting 62 cities in a failed attempt to remove George W. Bush from office. My goal was to help turn out a record number of young voters and others who had never voted before. (That part was a success. Young adults voted in greater numbers than in any election since 18-year-olds were given the right to vote. And the youth vote was the only age group that John Kerry won.)

You can read more about this film at the website. Or you can sit and watch and learn for yourself.

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