Fair Game

amazing acting depicting a horrible reality of an administration doing yet another voverup

Good movie.

I have noticed this with a growing number of movies on Amazon Prime: The camera jolts or oscillates unnecessarily. Even when focused on an unmoving person or article in the frame, the camera movies hither and thither and around, to no purpose, as if the cameraman has had too much to drink. This makes the viewer dizzy. There are at least three other movies on Amazon Prime - all made in the last ten years - that I had begun to enjoy, but got dizzy from the camera wobbles, and had to stop after ten or fifteen minutes. I encourage movie makers to deploy cameras steadily, like in the old days before 2010.Other than that, this is a brilliant movie about two American heroes - Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, CIA covert operative Valerie Plame. In its mission to justify the second war on Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration made up, reinterpreted, and publicized various facts as “evidence” that the Iraqi regime was making WMD (weapons of mass destruction). To this end, it sought to show that Iraq had purchased Uranium “yellow cake” - a raw material for nuclear bombs - from Niger, and centrifuge pipes for refining it. The truth was the former purchase never occurred, while the latter were for conventional bombs, and couldn’t be used for refining nuclear material.Joe Wilson had actually visited Niger at the CIA’s request, and found no evidence of yellow cake sales. He and Valerie Plame, parents of twin kindergarteners at the time, stood up to the lies. In the process, they were hounded and abused, and Plame was “outed”, i.e., her name was published as a covert operative, jeopardizing her operations, and the lives of multiple Americans and foreigners in them. Their marriage was severely tested.The movie draws on two books, authored separately by Wilson and Plame, and is (barring the dreadful camera wobbles) superbly scripted, edited and acted. Veterans Sean Penn and Naomi Watts play the lead roles masterfully. If you can get over the dizziness from the camera jolts, the movie will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout.The deeper story is the seemingly unending conflict between two Americas - one which puts country first, and the other which puts power (for select individuals, not the country) first. The one cares deeply about the principles of righteousness and truth that made America a great culture and a superpower. The other seeks to retain power with a select few, including by lying, and is the source of America’s decline, and the rise of other nations.

Every American Should see this movie.

Only her husband, Joe Wilson, and her parents knew the true identity of Valerie's alias. To begin, the office of the Vice President received a report concerning a memorandum of the sale between the governments of Niger (not to be confused with Nigeria) and Iraq for the purchase of 500-tons of yellowcake uranium ore. Yellowcake uranium is a concentrate from uranium ore used as fissile material in weapons. Niger has two uranium mines in the Sahara desert. One is not in operation and the other is run by COGEMA, a French subsidiary, jointly controlled by the Japanese and Germans. Ambassador Joe Wilson knew the country well, because he started his foreign service there. He had visited it many times as Ambassador to Gabon and then again as Director of Africa Policy for President Clinton with NSC. He often met with Prime Minister Mayaki, and he knew the former Foreign Minister and the Minister of Mines. Five hundred tons of yellowcake represents 40 percent of the nation's annual output of uranium. A sale that size would leave a huge paper trail. Any documentation would, by law, require the signatures of the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and Minister of Mines. Joe Wilson travelled there to investigate and spoke with these connections. He determined the sale could not have happened which is not what the Administration wanted to hear. He was expected to toe the line and by whatever deceitful means to support the Vice President's apocryphal supposition that Iraq, Saddam Hussein's government, was acquiring the fissile material needed to develop a nuclear capability. As a retaliatory, criminal act, on July 14, 2003, Valerie Plame's name as a CIA agent was published in the widely read Novak syndicated column. This jeopardized the lives of people in the field in critical stages of operations, 8 to 9 teams, in Kuala Lumpar, Mumbai, and Dubai. And in a crucial operation in Baghdad, at least two scientists, Falli and Hubbuk, were killed working on Valerie's behalf. Karl Rowe escaped indictment, but Lewis Scooter Libby was convicted and sentenced to two and a half years in prison and a $250,000 fine. President Bush used his executive authority to commute the court's sentence. In 2006, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage admitted to being a source of the leak.

For those of us who actually followed the yellowcake claim, this was fascinating. I think the public has only seen the dimension of Valerie Plame's outing as revenge for exposing we went into the Iraq war imprudently before verifying the facts. But the movie is fascinating because it gives dimension to the personal impact of the outing of an operative.The characters are artfully played. Though we may never know the scope of the damage to US nuclear intelligence, or what might have been confirmed or disproven if Plame were permitted to hand-off the extractions rather than CIA administrators siding with the White House rather than immediately inspecting the disclosure, it is probably a good bet we could have saved ourselves a war.I've seen reviews saying this movie is left-wing liberal blather. Well, ask Colin Powell. My understanding is that the flour milling rods mistaken (although, the movie raises a spectre that it was intentional) for uranium processing equipment were actually made in the U.S. and thus the FBi could have answered the question. Another issue is the Tony Blair briefing. So, this movie could have been a real liberal thing: Covering Scooter Libby's felony conviction; investigating the Vice Pesident's Project for a New America Iraq Plan; etc. I thought it was value-neutral and focussed on process enough to be a movie of general appeal to anyone interested in spycraft, foreign policy and market wars over fossil fuels.

As a fan of Doug Limans previous work (the first bourne film) I gave this a go. It also helps I like Ms. Watts too. I recommend this film to anyone who appreciates a hearty good thriller. It's a wonderful showcase for Naomi and she does not disappoint. In fact there's not one bad performance in the entire cast. It's a thrilling watch. Tense and terrific and taut and brilliant film making. Pure brilliance really.

Very good film. Acting was brilliant.

Excellent film with Penn and Watts

great product just as described

Great film on Blu Ray