Doug Liman’s taut political thriller, Fair Game, unfolds as the 2003 war in Iraq draws menacingly closer. (video)
Doug Liman’s taut political thriller, Fair Game, unfolds as the 2003 war in Iraq draws menacingly closer.
Scheduled to open in Toronto on Nov. 5, the film rehashes the controversy over Iraq’s alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
It also brings into focus the attendant scandal that engulfed Valerie Plame, a covert Central Intelligence Agency agent assigned to monitor Iraq’s nuclear program, and her husband, Joe Wilson, a former U.S. diplomat whom the CIA recruited to corroborate rumours that Baghdad had acquired fissile material from Niger.
The scandal erupted when Robert Novak, a syndicated columnist, blew Plame’s cover and forced her to resign. She was, as the film’s title suggests, “fair game.” Novak obtained the scoop from highly placed U.S. government officials, including the vice-president’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby, who sought to punish Plame’s husband by “outing” the agent.
Wilson incurred the wrath of the Bush administration by publishing an op-ed piece in the New York Times denying that Iraq had acquired 500 tons of yellowcake uranium ore from Niger, an impoverished African country.
Wilson’s article undercut claims by the United States that Iraq was working to build an atomic bomb, one of the reasons cited for launching the invasion of Iraq. With the scandal simmering, Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice, fined and thrown into prison. President George W. Bush commuted his sentence, spelling finis to a sordid chapter in American politics.
Fair Game, which is set in Washington, D.C., Kuala Lumpur and three Arab capitals, opens as Wilson (Sean Penn), a retired diplomat once posted to Baghdad, is asked to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein has bought yellowcake ore from Niger.
As he pokes around Niger, a nation whose hotel bathroom taps emit muddy water, Plame (Naomi Watts), who is blessed with brains and grit, engages her colleagues in a debate as to whether Iraq is already in the process of manufacturing a nuclear device.
In the quest to answer this burning question, Plame contacts an Iraqi nuclear scientist in Cairo who’s passing himself off as an innocuous Egyptian scholar, and tries to recruit the sister of an Iraqi nuclear physicist working for Saddam.
Plame’s intention is to compile a list of Iraqi nuclear scientists and whisk them out of Iraq for debriefings and resettlement in the United States. As she goes about her business, Libby attempts to determine whether aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq can be used in a centrifuge to enrich uranium.
Having ascertained that Iraq’s nuclear program was destroyed in the 1991 Gulf War and its aftermath, Plame informs her boss that Iraq is free of atomic weapons. Wilson, meanwhile, submits his piece to the New York Times after Bush, in his State of the Union speech, falsely claims that Iraq bought yellowcake ore from Niger.
At this point, Fair Game goes into high drive as Plame’s elaborate cover is blown away and her career and marriage unravel.
The film, in essence, is a cautionary tale and object lesson in betrayal.
Plame, having been reassigned after Novak’s exposé, can no longer assure the personal safety of the Iraqi scientists and expedite their flight to the United States. “It’s all over,” her boss says coldly, leaving Plame high and dry in questionable moral terrain.
Plame, unlike her voluble husband, remains silent and loyal to her masters, refusing to sully the image of the CIA. “You can’t pick a fight with the White House,” she says, imploring Wilson to be quiet. But eventually, she has a change of heart.
Fair Game, whose realistic tone includes news clips of Bush and his vice-president, Dick Cheney, adopts a hard-hitting approach to the topic at hand, and is critical of U.S. foreign policy. Top-drawer performances from Watts, Penn and the rest of the cast enhance its quality.
Fair Game is the latest addition to a fairly long list of Hollywood films whose theme has turned on the war in Iraq. More are bound to follow.
