Fair Game

Add one more to the list of movies on Iraq. How many more movies would need to be made to get the world aware that the entire issue in Iraq was nothing but a sham. Are we actually expecting some justice to be delivered in probably the largest case of genocide after Hitler and Vietnam? What would take for the world to realize that there is no point in taking on “the most powerful people in the world”? I tip my hat to the patience that people have in churning out movies after movies on how the entire effort of “THE War against terror” was all made up. Now, sustained effort should hopefully get justice but as Nixon proudly proclaimed after Watergate, “The President is the Law”. Now how does one expect to get around that? Is the legal system in the land of the free so strong that it can give any immunity to anyone who thinks can take on the system or will we just see movie after movie getting the so called truth out and makes it look eventually like just a political propaganda that the Democrats are running against the Republicans?


Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) is a CIA Operative. She finished top of her class during the training period and the Agency obviously has a lot of faith on her. She has nearly 10 covert operations running simultaneously in different parts of the world from South East Asia to the Middle East and even parts of Europe. She works under various under cover names and is quite successful in most of her efforts in generating information and getting things done. She is married to Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) who is the ex Ambassador of the United States to Iraq and some countries in Africa as well. Her operations lead her to a chemical’s dealer in Kuala Lumpur and then eventually they team stumbles upon some information on shipments of a large quantity (500 Tons) of “Yellow Cake” a.k.a. Uranium Ore from Africa, specifically Niger (pronounced Ni-j-er) to Iraq.

Knowing that Joe has spent a lot of time in Africa, she recommends his name to the panel and Joe agrees to help with a reccee of sorts. Using his best contacts, Joe does get out as much information as possible and comes to the conclusion that it is just not possible to have sent out so much of Uranium without a whole trail of paper work. He reports the information accordingly and considers his job done. But when people in power want something badly, they go out and get it. Reports start trickling in that loads of Uranium have been shipped out from Africa, specifically Niger to aid the manufacture of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. Joe doesn’t take this too lightly and shoots off a note to the newspapers about how the entire thing is a sham and there is no proof etc.etc. etc. That begins the downfall of Valerie and Joe and what follows is the story of how the two of them try and take on the system.

Fair Game doesn’t give you too much to look forward to. It is an extremely convoluted movie like most movies about Iraq have to be – consciously I guess. There are just too many conspiracy theories running around and one doesn’t really know what to believe. If spy thrillers which get more dirt out on George Bush and the entire Iraq war is your thesis topic for your Ph.D. then Fair Game is worth a watch. It is pretty much like Green Zone meets Hurt Locker meets Farenheit 9/11 meets the dime a dozen other Iraq oriented movies which are supposed to give us that “slightly different” perspective. Difficult to sustain attention coz after a point of time your heading is screaming out – GIVE ME SOMETHING NEW GUYS!!!! Doug Liman not the best director in the block and after his debacle with Mr. & Mrs. Smith, he doesn’t seem to have made too much of progress. Naomi Watts and Sean Penn are the only saving grace for the otherwise quite average movie. I give it 5 on 10.