NMR: Fair Game

I finally got around to watching this one from Netflix after it had been sitting on my end table for a couple of weeks. For those unfamiliar with the title, this is the film that came out near the end of last year regarding the Valerie Plame case. Naomi Watts plays Plame, while Sean Penn plays her husband, Joe Wilson. As would be expected, the acting from the two leads is excellent. Penn, especially, is good here and I tend not to like a lot of his work. The film's biggest flaw though is that it is somewhat without a purpose. Those familiar with her story (she was outed as a CIA agent after her husband spoke out against the Bush administration's claim that Iraq had WMDs) don't really learn anything new here that they didn't already know about the story. And those that either don't care about the story or don't like Plame will find nothing here that will change those opinions. The film never bores, but yet doesn't do enough to justify the existence of the film in the first place. Only those who are really fascinated by her story or big fans of the leads should bother giving this one a watch. Rating: ***