The problem with Fair Game is the problem with most Iraq War movies; the Americans just aren't the most interesting topic. So far, I'd say that the best productions about the current wars in the Middle East are Jarhead and Generation Kill and they are both about the relationships amongst the troops and their leaders and less about the actual war itself. Once you get into the actual battles, the American side of the story just isn't that compelling.

Case in point, "Fair Game" is about Valerie Plame but there's a b-story about an Iraqi-American woman who heads back to Iraq to get in contact with her brother, a scientist who once worked in Saddam's weapons program before it was taken out in the first Iraq War. That story is the best part of the movie but it's relegated to the b-story and we're somehow supposed to feel more for Plame, which is hard since she lost her career and perhaps her marriage whereas the people in Iraq were losing their lives.

That being said, the Valerie Plame story is still an absolutely amazing story since it's all about how the government lied to create a war and then tried to shift the focus off of their own lies and onto media circuses like the Valerie Plame discussion. Unfortunately for the film "Fair Game", the story can only carry so much of the film and the characters and emotional elements of the movie just don't work. "Fair Game" was by far the most intriguing yet boring movie of the year. I wouldn't put the blame on the actors though; Sean Penn is great and Naomi Watts gives her best performance in years but there's just a lack of stakes; even the final titles that tell us what happened to everyone doesn't mention the lives lost in Iraq rather it focuses on where Plane, Wilson, and Scooter Libby are today. The film, like the administration, treats our troops and the people of Iraq more as collateral damage than the actual victims of the crime.

The Valerie Plame story is a key moment in modern US History; a story about how someone tried to tell the truth and the government effectively changed the story and got everyone focusing on one woman instead of the lies it had told to get us into war. It's about what was probably the most obvious coverup of our day but it's not about the cost of our coverup or how/why everyone fell for it. "Fair Game" also falls for it though, as I've said, focusing on Plame and not the greater truth that was out there.

Basically, if you talk about the Valerie Plame incident by focusing on Plame, you've already missed the point.