When the president is involved in scandal shortly before the election, a Hollywood producer is brought in to manufacture a war in Albania to distract from the scandal and that the President can end.
"Wag the Dog" has a great premise that was prescient; before the film was released, President Clinton was involved in the sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky, and he threatened military action in Iraq. The really frightening thing is that in one of the clips shown in the film, a young woman wearing Monica's beret can be seen. It reminded me a little of the situation when Alfred Hitchcock was filming "Notorious," and his Mcguffin was the uranium to make an atom bomb being hidden in wine bottles. It was entirely innocent on his part, but the FBI had him under surveillance for months wondering what he knew about the uranium stores in South America that actually existed..
Dustin Hoffman is Stanley Motss, the producer brought in by political adviser Conrad Bean (Robert DeNiro) to produce the war. Anne Heche plays a presidential aide, and the film also includes William H. Macy, Kirsten Dunst, Andrea Martin, Denis Leary, and Willie Nelson.
The sad thing is that I suppose all this is possible, despite some obvious holes in the David Mamet-Hilary Henkin script. The media can certainly manipulate, and why wouldn't gullible people believe what they are being shown? Maybe it's based on the premise that the American people are fairly dumb, and if you don't agree with that, you probably won't like it.
Nevertheless, "Wag the Dog" puts forth a provocative idea and gets you thinking, and it's great to see Hoffman and DeNiro as two clever albeit sleazy people who believe the end justifies the means.
"Wag the Dog" has a great premise that was prescient; before the film was released, President Clinton was involved in the sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky, and he threatened military action in Iraq. The really frightening thing is that in one of the clips shown in the film, a young woman wearing Monica's beret can be seen. It reminded me a little of the situation when Alfred Hitchcock was filming "Notorious," and his Mcguffin was the uranium to make an atom bomb being hidden in wine bottles. It was entirely innocent on his part, but the FBI had him under surveillance for months wondering what he knew about the uranium stores in South America that actually existed..
Dustin Hoffman is Stanley Motss, the producer brought in by political adviser Conrad Bean (Robert DeNiro) to produce the war. Anne Heche plays a presidential aide, and the film also includes William H. Macy, Kirsten Dunst, Andrea Martin, Denis Leary, and Willie Nelson.
The sad thing is that I suppose all this is possible, despite some obvious holes in the David Mamet-Hilary Henkin script. The media can certainly manipulate, and why wouldn't gullible people believe what they are being shown? Maybe it's based on the premise that the American people are fairly dumb, and if you don't agree with that, you probably won't like it.
Nevertheless, "Wag the Dog" puts forth a provocative idea and gets you thinking, and it's great to see Hoffman and DeNiro as two clever albeit sleazy people who believe the end justifies the means.