The trailer for Doug Liman’s “Fair Game” drama starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts is out and it’s well cut and looks intriguing.
Our review from Cannes earlier this year wasn’t entirely positive, but this writer will admit his interest is still piqued as this looks certainly above what we were expecting. Based on the true-life Plamegate story, the film chronicles the fallout of covert CIA agent Valarie Plame (Watts), whose identity was compromised when White House officials outed her position in a retribution-like bid to discredit her husband (played by Penn) who had written a New York Times op-ed piece positing that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq.
The op-ed obviously hit too close to home. Co-starring Satya Bhabha, Sam Shepard, Ty Burrell, Noah Emmerich and character actors Michael Kelly and Bruce McGill, the film has already been slotted by Summit Entertainment for a November 5, limited release bow. Our review doesn’t really suggest the picture has Oscar legs, and it’s likely going to suffer audience indifference, but the rest of us are still intensely curious.