Fair Game ****

It seems like a dark action thriller, full of intrigue and high stakes games where lives are literally put on the line. But it is, unfortunately, a true story, concerning the time when the Bush administration decided that Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) was fair game for them to out as a CIA operative because her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson (Sean Penn), had the temerity to publicize the fact that he did not find any sign in Niger that Saddam Hussein had tried to get uranium from there in the midst of the Bush/Cheney campaign to lead the U.S. into a war that turned out be totally without justification. The depiction of just what Valerie was doing in her job, and well as the strains on their marriage that the scandal produced, forms the heart of the movie. Watts and Penn turn in low key, absolutely believable performances, and the movie gives us a fresh view of the drumbeat of selective interpretation, suppression of evidence, and lies that herded the U.S. Congress into approving the invasion of Iraq.

Rated PG-13. 108 minutes. Doug Liman - Director / Producer / Cinematographer, Jez Butterworth - Writer (screenplay) / Producer, John-Henry Butterworth - Writer (screenplay), Joseph Wilson - Writer (book "The Politics of Truth"), Valierie Plame - Writer (book "Fair Game"), Akiva Goldsman - Producer, William Pohlad - Producer, Janet Zucker - Producer, Jerry Zucker - Producer, John Powell -Composer, Jess Gonchor - Production Designer, Christopher Tellefsen - Editor. Distributed by Summit Entertainment.

Principal actors: Naomi Watts, Sean Penn.