Movie Review: FAIR GAME About Outing CIA Agent Valerie Plame

Naomi Watts and Sean Penn Deliver a First Rate Historical Account of an Adminstration Determined to Go to War At All Costs

4 out of 5 Stars

by Johnny Punish

My first reaction to the movie I have just viewed was “I am very sad”.   After almost 2 hours of being reminded of how horrible U.S. activities in Iraq were almost 10 years ago, I was taken back to a place that I was hoping to gloss over and forget.

In the year 2011, I am relatively happy.  The Obama administration, while not perfect, does NOT yet seem to be engaging in horrific cover-ups, lies, and deceptions that are resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people overseas and the wholesale destruction of our once great moral compass at home.  So a return to those early George W. Bush days when we believed our President while he and his assigns were strategically duping us and sacrificing our collective selves for the benefit of their small gang of warmongering thugs was just heart-wrenching.

Passed the anger years ago, the only real reaction was “I am sad” in that I cried for us as Americans who’ve been so badly beat up by the actions of that rogue President.

On a side note, yesterday, a potential candidate for President Donald Trump said Barack Obama was the worst president in history.  Of course, he offered no basis for his statement, and clearly, he has not seen Fair Game because, James Buchanan notwithstanding, it’s clear that George W. Bush should be issued this dubious award. Thinking out loud, does the academy of motion pictures offer a lifetime achievement award for the biggest jerk-off in history?  I am just saying…..

Anyway, for those reading this review that doesn’t know, Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA agent was revealed by White House officials 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.

Valerie Plame was outted by a disloyal rogue junta in the White House and the CIA was in a panic mode as all agents were now subjected to the whim of an out-of-control White House that put it’s agenda ahead of it’s fellow loyal patriotic Americans who sacrificed their lives in defense of it’s country.

Cast & Credits

Valerie Plame:  Naomi Watts
Joseph Wilson: Sean Penn

Summit Entertainment presents a film directed by Doug Liman. Written by Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth, based on the books The Politics of Truth by Joseph Wilson and Fair Game by Valerie Plame Wilson. Running time: 106 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some language).

Starring Naomi Watts as the beautiful loyal and very serious Valerie Plame and Sean Penn as the combative Ambassador Joe Wilson, Valerie’s husband, the movie was blessed with outstanding actors who could pull this movie together and tell the story that most of us didn’t really want to know in that we went to war in Iraq because President George W. Bush and his gang wanted war and created the atmosphere where they could go to war with the American public cheering for them.

Naomi Watts is strikingly very close in resemblance to the real Valerie Plame and that created an excellent start to getting the viewer into her mind.  Moreover, her performance was superb…riveting as one can really believe she was Valerie Plame.

With Sean Penn, we get arguably, one of America’s greatest actors.  His all-in approach to acting is world-class and compelling as usual.  Whether he’s playing Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Joe Wilson in Fair Game, Penn is the character and that always makes for a movie that we can nosh on.

There is one scene in particular that demonstrates how far George W. Bush took down our country duping and dirty pitching his way to immortal stardom as the biggest jerk-off in history when a taxi driver from Sierra Leone was telling passenger Joe Wilson that America was such a great place and not like Sierra Leone which was super corrupt.  Joe Wilson, upon hearing this lovely happy-to-be-in-America blue-collar guy believed he was in the most sacred and corrupt free place on earth, asked the man to stop the car so he can get out and walk instead of being forced to deceptively re-inforce the beliefs of this blissful new American.  Frankly, I thought Joe Wilson was going to hurl right there as he was so distraught knowing that the most corrupt people in the whole world were right there outside his window and the American people thought that the guys wearing the tailored blue and brown suits were the good guys.

And that’s the story of Fair Game.

It illustrates that the USA during the Bush Administration took us 1000 times more past what was President Nixon’s Watergate and into a realm of such unbelievable and unspeakable crimes against humanity that we are still paralyzed and will be feeling its effects for years to come.  While Nixon was forced to resign over stealing documents at Democratic headquarters, no doubt a crime.  What George W. Bush and his assigns did make Nixon’s crime look like Lindsay Lohan stealing a necklace from some small town jewelry shop.

With Scooter Libby going to jail and then getting pardoned by his godfather, unlike Nixon, these uber criminals got away with it and Obama still does not have the temerity to do anything about it.  And that’s what makes this writer so sad.  We’ve lost so much.

Even though the movie will make the viewer angry and sad, Fair Game is a movie that all Americans should see and allow themselves to feel contempt and disrespect.  It’s a good way to be reminded that our government does lie to us and we need to continue to keep our collective heads out of the sand and strike back against tyranny.

Of course, while the likes of any future George W. Bush, Karl Roves, or Dick Cheneys wouldn’t appreciate our enlightened disposition, I would say they would be “Fair Game” don’t ya think?

2011 Copyright – JohnnyPunish.com

Johnny Punish

Johnny Punish founded VT in 2004.  After 20 years at the helm, he “retired” from the daily operations in late 2023 passing the ball over to the new owner of VT, Chief Justin Time.   He now writes for VT as “Writer Emeritus”.  He is also a global citizen eco-activist, visionary, musician, artist, entertainer, businessman, investor, life coach, podcast host, and syndicated columnist.  

Punish is an ethnically cleansed Palestinian-American whose maternal family was evicted from their home in Haifa, Palestine in 1948 by Irgun; a Euro-Zionist Settler Terrorist Group.  The family became part of the over 1,000,000 Palestinians who are Al-Nakba refugees (The Catastrophe).  The family fled to Beirut Lebanon for 13 years eventually emigrating to the USA in 1961 via a Brasilian passport obtained by his Palestinian Brasilian-born grandmother (In the early 1900s, the family was sent to Sao Paolo Brasil as guest workers in the mining industry.  Punish’s father is Italian-American from New York City.  Punish’s paternal great-grandparents emigrated to the USA from Naples Italy and Marineo in Sicily in the 1890s.  Punish was born in the Bronx, New York in 1963.

Punish was educated at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (1980-81) and California State University Fullerton (1981-1984) with studies in accounting and business. Before the “internets” had been invented, he owned and ran (5) national newspapers in the United States of America from 1987-1998.  From 2004 to 2023, he owned and managed VT Foreign Policy retiring at the end of 2023.

Punish is also a recording artist.  He has over 100 original songs written. He records and produces music. A member of ASCAP, Punish has several songs placed in feature films. His music is promoted worldwide and played on all digital networks and net radio.

He is also the founder and owner of  Global Thinkers, a freedom media that helps free thinkers create real wealth.

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