"Buried under the docudrama surface of Fair Game is a vividly intense look at a political marriage under siege. Naomi Watts and Sean Penn bring ferocity and feeling to their roles, turning a potent political thriller into a stirring, relatable human drama." Peter Travers ROLLING STONE "Watts, who plays Plame as a sturdy spook micromanaging both her family and her covert ops, and Penn own the film; it's a master class in submerging yourself into your character." Marc Savlov AUSTIN CHRONICLE "Fair Game" is such a brutal and personal testimony to the consequences of dirty politics that it often feels too ugly to be true. Unfortunately, it is." Tom Long DETROIT NEWS "Doug Liman has done a pretty good job maintaining the pace and tension in this film, though I could have done with a little less hand-held camera. Penn is superb, and Watts is pretty credible." Julie Rigg ABC MOVIE TIME "What makes the film work is that it never underestimates the audience." Ken Hanke MOUNTAIN XPRESS "Though based on a true story with a well-known outcome, Doug Liman's "Fair Game" is as suspenseful as any fictional thriller and considerably more tragic." Elizabeth Weitzman NEW YORK DAILY NEWS "Working for the CIA can be a real drag. Naomi Watts and Sean Penn bring Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson vibrantly to life, and Doug Liman steers clear of pedantic politics." Clint O'Connor CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER

"This compelling film reaches out to the audience and instills a feeling of great pride in being an American. No movie this year has done a better job of entertaining, educating and informing the audience. The movie’s most important message is that the public should demand the truth. " Keith Cohen ENTERTAINMENT SPECTRUM "Both Sean Penn and Naomi Watts offer believable performances here, and Watts is impressive in the truly tricky role of the complex Ms Plame." Liz Braun JAM! MOVIES "A highly intelligent political thriller with a stellar performance from Naomi Watts." Simon Weaving SCREENWIZE "The best surprise of the film is David Andrews as Scooter Libby who shows us his mistrust of the career staff and his insecurity about the way they saw him." Nell Minow BELIEFNET "The strains of the public and the personal are well reflected in this film. This is a fascinating insight into the behind the scenes story of a story. This is a complex story of ego, secrecy, bombast and outright lying that has been very cohesively told." Margaret Pomeranz ABC AT THE MOVIES "You'd have to go back to All the President's Men for a better example of fresh American political scandal being turned into slam-bang, star-powered drama. Scrupulous with the facts on weapons of mass destruction, the movie arrives at the same impasse that the media and justice system did when vice presidential aide Scooter Libby was thrown to the wolves." J. R. Jones CHICAGO READER

The Inside Story In late 2001, Valerie Plame was juggling two lives: her personal life as the wife of retired ambassador Joe Wilson, as a mother to their Trevor Rolph and Samantha Finnell Diana, and her secret professional life, running covert missions for the CIA. As leader of the agency’s Joint Task Force on Iraq, Valerie was tasked with infiltrating Saddam’s weapons programs at a crucial moment in the run-up to the Iraq war. "Certainly it was a fascinating story from a political point of view," says Fair Game producer Jerry Zucker ("Flying High"). "But the more we heard from Valerie and Joe about the effect this had on their marriage, the more we realised that here was a deeply personal human drama." The Wilson’s story had played out very publicly. Dispatched by the U.S. government to Niger to confirm reports of a large purchase of uranium by the Iraqi government, Wilson concluded that the rumours were unfounded, but his findings were ignored by the Bush administration. The former State Department official was no friend of Saddam Hussein. He was the last American diplomat to meet with the dictator after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, personally demanding the withdrawal of Iraqi forces. He also faced down Hussein when the Iraqi President threatened the lives of any foreigners living in Iraq, rescuing thousands of Americans before he left the country himself. But Wilson, an inveterate truth teller, was outraged by the White House’s decision to falsely cite the debunked uranium sale as proof that Iraq was currently on the verge of producing a nuclear weapon. Shortly after he published an article refuting the claim in The New York Times, Valerie’s identity as a covert officer was revealed. The Wilsons, their family and scores of her associates were deliberately endangered. The unidentified source was clearly a high-ranking Bush administration official. "You couldn’t have made this up," says producer Janet Zucker ("Rat Race"). After learning more about the Wilsons, the producers realised the story was much deeper and richer than the headlines. Joe and Valerie were a couple whose lives had been turned upside down in the most wrenching personal terms. Each reacted very differently to the campaign against them. Joe fired back with both barrels, alleging that the revelation was criminal act. But after a lifetime in the shadows, Valerie was reluctant to go public. "Here was a woman who led a secret life for a long time," says two time ShoWest Award wunner Jerry Zucker. "Her most intimate friends thought she was a venture capitalist. Suddenly she is thrust into the spotlight and revealed as a spy, forced to speak out publicly and defend her life. It was an incredible reversal." The Zuckers commissioned prize-winning screenwriting brothers Jez and John-Henry Butterworth to craft a screenplay based on the Wilsons’ experiences. The Butterworths, who are British, had no idea who Valerie Plame was when they were contacted. "We also knew nothing at all about the U.S. political system, except for the most general knowledge," says Jez. "But the story was so intriguing, we were eager to learn more about it." The screenwriters saw the potential cinematic gold in the characters and conflict in the story, recognizing that what happened to the Wilsons after Valerie was 'outed' struck at the very heart of their family and their marriage. "I’m not sure I know how to write political scenes even though my political sympathies were with the Wilsons,” Jez says. “But characters I know." Yet when the Butterworths signed on to write the screenplay, they found themselves facing restrictions unlike any they had ever encountered before. Even Valerie's unpublished memoir was off limits to them until the CIA finished vetting it. "We first became interested in making Fair Game because we saw an opportunity to tell the story of two remarkable people at the center of a pivotal moment in history," says Janet Zucker ("First Knight"). "As we began developing the project, we discovered that conveying what happened to Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson was complicated by a number of factors, including the fact that some of the work Valerie did for the CIA remains classified." So although the filmmakers had the rights to Plame’s book and her cooperation as a consultant on the movie; she could not reveal any information the government still considered to be secret. The writers were left with no recourse but to conduct research on their own. "We did an immense amount," says Jez (who made his feature film directorial debut in 1997 with "Mojo"). "First about the U.S. government and the CIA, and then about the Wilsons themselves." "The research period was terrifically exciting," John-Henry (who makes his screenwriting debut) recalls. "It was all very cloak and dagger. People were reluctant to talk about Valerie at first, especially when they heard we were researching a movie. In fact, we were registered at our hotel as construction executives." Because of the amount of press coverage and speculation surrounding what became known as 'the Plame affair', firsthand accounts were crucial to getting the story right. "The case was covered in the press like a football match," John-Henry said. "Everyone took a side. We needed to know what actually happened. No one we encountered was very keen to be interviewed and everyone insisted that their remarks be kept off the record." Along with Janet Zucker, the London born Butterworth brothers attended the trial of Vice President Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, the only government official ever to be charged in the Plame case (some say he was a scapegoat). Eventually they were allowed to read Valerie’s memoir, but only after it had been released in heavily redacted form by CIA’s Publications Review Board. In order to tell this complex story in a two-hour movie, the Butterworths changed some names and created composite characters. "For example, Dr Hassan and her physicist brother, who in the film provide Valerie with information on the Iraqi nuclear arms program, are fictional characters," says Jerry. "They are meant to be representative of the types of intelligence sources that Valerie might have contacted in her work as a covert CIA officer." With everything falling into place, the Zuckers brought the project to Bill Pohlad and his company, River Road Entertainment. River Road specialises in projects that blend groundbreaking creative objectives with commercial viability, including the Academy Award winning "Brokeback Mountain", "A Prairie Home Companion", "Into the Wild" and Terrence Malicks upcoming "The Tree of Life" (2011) which stars Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Fiona Shaw. "I read the script and found it really compelling," Pohlad recalls. "At River Road, we try to avoid things that are too timely and focus on stories we think will stand the test of time. At first, given the topic, there was some concern about the current events aspect of the subject. When I read the script I realised it transcended that. What happens to Valerie and Joe on a personal level is universal. We all agreed that the political nature of this film was secondary to that." The filmmakers made every attempt to present the story as truthfully as possible, according to Pohlad ("The Runaways"). "It is an emotional portrait of two extraordinarily brave and determined people caught up in the maelstrom of history and of a marriage that survived the ultimate test." Pohlad was confident director Doug Liman brought the perfect skill set to the project. "Doug’s background directing spy thrillers and his ability to pull off action were attractive," says Pohlad. "But we also knew Doug would able to translate what was going on within Joe and Valerie’s life." It appears Liman was already a fan of the Butterworth brothers work. "They had done some work for me on Mr & Mrs Smith," says the director of the Bourne trilogy. "It’s no exaggeration to say that they are my favourite screenwriters." Liman insists he had no political agenda in making Fair Game. "My priority was to stay on track and not get sucked into the politics of the story. Politics were like a siren calling from the rocky shoals along the shore. I had to turn a deaf ear every time I walked onto the set." From the start, Liman and the producers wanted Naomi Watts to play Valerie Plame. An actress of tremendous emotional range and an Academy Award nominee for her work opposite Sean Penn in "21 Grams", Watts embodied Plame’s combination of easygoing femininity and steely calm. "Naomi was a natural for the role," says Pohlad ("Food, Inc."). A meeting was quickly arranged between Naomi and Doug Liman. "From our first meeting, Naomi showed unwavering commitment to the film," says Liman. Watts ("King Kong" & "The Assassination of Richard Nixon") offered to send the screenplay to Oscar winner Sean Penn ("Milk") to see if he was interested in playing Joe Wilson. Liman and the producers jumped at her suggestion. "I knew this was right up his alley," Watts ("Eastern Promises") says. "He has the same kind of passion as Joe Wilson. He commits seven thousand percent." After meeting with Liman, Penn agreed to star in the film. "Of course, Sean Penn was everyone’s first choice for Joe, Liman offered. "Sean is the greatest actor working today. In my opinion, he’s the greatest actor of his generation." The real Valerie Plame also was awed by the physical and emotional authenticity of the performances. It was, she says, as if she was confronting doppelgangers of herself and her husband. "Joe and I were absolutely thrilled with the cast and the crew. I showed my son a photograph that was taken of me and Naomi on set." Her son looked at it and said, "Mum, isn’t it strange to find you have a twin at fourty five?" Wilson was flattered and excited to be played by Sean Penn. "Being portrayed by someone like Sean is something I never would have expected. He's such a consummate actor. We spent a week joined at the hip, and he really does get into your skin." Watts believes that the Wilsons personal struggle will touch audiences as much as it has her. "I hope that Valerie and Joe’s story will move people. It’s a testament to them both that their marriage survived despite the level of scrutiny they were put under." The film also features an expansive ensemble of actors, including playwright and actor Sam Shepard ("Stealth" & "Black Hawk Down") in the role of Valerie’s father, a retired air force lieutenant colonel; Bruce McGill as Jim Pavitt, deputy director of the CIA ("Vantage Point"); Ty Burrell as Fred ("Black Hawk Down" & "National Treasure: Book of Secrets"): Noah Emmerich as Bill Johnson ("Little Children" & "Pride and Glory") and David Andrews as 'Scooter' Libby ("Stealth", "Dear John" & "A Walk to Remember"). "Every director says he couldn’t have made the film without his cast and crew," Liman concedes. "I could not have made this film without this extraordinary cast and my incredible, gifted, committed and talented crew. This not a great climate in which to make a serious, ambitious film that is being produced on a very small budget. But everyone involved gladly cut their fees." What It's All About

A covert officer in the CIA’s counter-proliferation department, Valerie Plame discovers that, contrary to the belief of many in the U.S. government, Iraq has no active nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, Valerie’s husband Joe is sent to Africa to investigate rumours of possible sales of enriched uranium to Iraq. Finding no such deals took place, Joe writes a New York Times piece outlining his conclusions, igniting a firestorm of controversy. Soon Valerie’s top-secret identity is leaked to high-profile Washington journalists. Is it an unhappy accident or a coordinated campaign to retaliate against her husband? With her cover blown and her overseas contacts left vulnerable, Valerie is pushed to the breaking point as her career and private life collapse. She receives anonymous death threats and Joe’s business dries up. After eighteen years serving the government, this mother, wife and field officer with an impeccable record in her field, now struggles to save not only her reputation, but also her career and her marriage.

The Verdict "No matter how you look at it, cinemagoers who take in "Fair Game" will inevitably find themselves sucked back into the political vortex of lies and deceit that plauged the Bush governments claims regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But not everyone believed the intel reports that Saddam Hussein either had WMD or that he was planning to enrich Uranium purchased from Niger: especially not Valerie Plame and her husband Joe Wilson. Wilson had been sent to Niger to determine whether or not uranium had been sent to Iraq, while Plame, an NOC in the CIA, led an investigation into whether a load of aluminium piping was to capable of being used used in the building a centrifuge in an Iraqi nuclear enrichment plant. In 2003 the Washington Post outed Plame as a CIA operative. The secret she and her husband had kept from all those around her for nineteen years, was now public knowledge. In 2005 Plame's career ended with her resignation from the CIA. In 2006 'Scooter' Libby was convicted on four counts by a Grand jury. Because of the highly sensitive nature of her work, the public may never know the full story. Years later, the US, British and Australian governments, were forced to admit there never were WMD in Iraq and that Bush, Blair and Howard were duped into believing they existed. Hard to believe when an article by Rupert Cornwell in The Independent on Friday 7th October 2005 revealed: "President George Bush has claimed he was told by God to invade Iraq and attack Osama bin Laden's stronghold of Afghanistan as part of a divine mission to bring peace to the Middle East, security for Israel, and a state for the Palestinians." Thanks to "Fair Game" and the engrossing performances by Watts and Penn, the righteous anger and indignation many felt at the time, will rise again. Stay for the credits to see the remarkable likeness of Plame & Watts. Classy! 4 STARS." Who's Playing Who?

Naomi Watts Sean Penn Bruce McGill Geoffrey Cantor David Andrews Noah Emmerich Ty Burrell Sam Shepard Michael Kelly Sonya Davison Norbert Leo Butz Rebecca Rigg Brooke Smith Norbert Leo Butz Liraz Charhi Khaled Nabawy Rafat Basel Maysa Abdel Sattar Anand Tiwari

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Valerie Plame Joe Wilson Jim Pavitt Ari Fleischer Scooter Libby Bill Johnson Fred Sam Plame Jack McAllister Chanel Suit Steve Norbert Lisa Diana Steve Norbert Dr Zahraa Hammad Hammad's Son Hammad's Wife Hafiz

The Production Team Directed by Doug Liman Screenplay by Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth Adapted from the book "The Politics of Truth" by Joseph Wilson Adapted from the book "Fair Game" by Valerie Plame Produced by Jez Butterworth/Akiva Goldsman/Doug Liman/William Pohlad/Janet Zucker/Jerry Zucker Original Music by John Powell Director of Photography Doug Liman Film Editing by Christopher Tellefsen Casting by Joseph Middleton Production Design by Jess Gonchor Art Direction by Kevin Bird Set Decoration by Sara Parks Costume Design by Cindy Evans Makeup Department Amanda Miller Run Time 108 minutes Rated M [AUST] Copyright ©2010 - Hoyts Distribution - All Rights Reserved ©1999-2010 - The Movie Pages & Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved. Protected by Australian and International Copyright. Trademark Laws and Intellectual Property Rights apply.