Fair Game ***

Director: Doug Liman

Cast: Naomi Watts

Sean Penn

Sam Shepard, Ty Burrell, Noah Emmerich

Bruce McGill, Brooke Smith

Perhaps casting Sean Penn as former US diplomat Joseph Wilson isn't the most subtle way of expressing your film's liberal agenda. Not only is the actor one of the most politically outspoken celebrities in the world, he also has become a universal symbol for portraying tragic heroes who more often than not are screwed by the system they're trying to change.

What continues being remarkable about Penn though is the way in which he makes each of these characters completely his own.

As Wilson, he's the epitome of suburban discontent. When we see him take on each of his dinner parties as if he was taking part in a huge political debate we understand this is a man who has fully assumed the idea that democracy begins with each of us.

It's even a more pleasant surprise when we see him become "human" when he's with his wife Valerie Plamer (Watts). She's a CIA agent who spends half her time traveling around the world organizing top secret missions for the government.

When the Iraq war breaks and Wilson makes it known that after investigating abroad, no evidence of actual weapons of mass destruction were found (which instantly might remind you of Penn's 2004 Oscar acceptance speech), his wife is outed by government officials and their life becomes a harsh "he said they said" game as they face the fact that they have been betrayed by the very system they were trying to protect.

This turns Fair Game into a strange hybrid movie that's one part thriller, two parts domestic drama and a lot of political outrage. In a time when films choose to be so blatantly subtle or encode everything through alien, monster or fantastic metaphors, it's actually refreshing to see a movie that expresses its deep dissatisfaction with the state of the world.

Watts gives yet another electrifying performance, making Valerie a woman who has to choose where her loyalties stand under the eye of the press, the government and family.

Few performers would be able to expose themselves so much without recurring to cheap trickery and mannerisms. Watching the actress as Valerie is watching a testament for the way in which films have always been the most powerful medium of ideas.

Brothers **

Director: Jim Sheridan
Cast: Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman
Sam Shepard, Mare Winningham, Bailee Madison, Taylor Geare
Clifton Collins, Jr., Carey Mulligan

If you have seen the Danish film "Brothers", you will have a hard time swallowing the sweetened American remake. Story's the same: Sam Cahill (Maguire) is deployed to Afghanistan days after his brother Tommy (Gyllenhaal) is released from jail.
His wife Grace (Portman) is left behind taking care of daughters Isabelle (Madison) and Maggie (Geare), when news arrive that Sam has been killed, Grace begins to get close to Tommy until
Sam returns from the dead.
Sheridan tries to emulate the humanity he created beautifully in "In America" (and he does get splendid performance from his young actresses) but "Brothers" mostly feel like it's pretty actors playing house.
Portman, whose quiet sensitivity isn't enough to muster motherhood gravitas, underacts her way through every scene reaching a point of indifference.
Gyllenhaal, who has the most interesting character in the movie, suffers from lack of nuance. This might not be his fault because the screenplay has shaped Tommy into the archetypal "bad seed" who has visible tattoos (Sam has one on his chest meant to be only seen by Grace we can assume), gets drunk, smokes and changes Thomas Newman's score whenever he appears from tranquil piano motifs to rockier tunes.
Maguire also has trouble conveying the moral dilemma that plagues Sam in the film's second half. One would assume that the actor's barely there look would serve him to evoke loss, but it only makes him seem like he forgot his dialogues.
In all the major problem with "Brothers" is that it suffers greatly from its change of setting. The Danish version inspired encountered feelings as the soldiers were participating in a war they never even started and are serving as proxies from their army's previous commitments.
When translating this to a nondescript American town (when one character is asked where did they grow the answer is "twenty miles from here" keeping the anonymity of the town as ways to inspire a feeling of-it could happen to you- universality) the plot looses its ability to question the system and is reduced to what almost all Afghanistan/Iraq films have come to in the last decade: a politically correct tale that empowers the army while trying to grasp the pain people in the outside world go through.
If not why then should Sheridan linger more on the death of an American soldier than the equally brutal killing of an Afghan?
And why is it only the death of said American that traumatizes Sam?
What director Susanne Bier achieved with the original movie was a raw evaluation of where the world stood when a global power sucks the rest of the countries into its sinkhole, what this "Brothers" offers us is a simplistic tale of Oedipal complexes (at the service of Shepard who plays the Cahill's patriarch) set to a U2 song, because if Bono sings about it, then it must be true.