The Film Fan Man at BuzzFlash.com

"Wag The Dog"

Review by The Film Fan Man

---> GET YOUR COPY OF THE DVD HERE <---

Remember the old line "Suppose they gave a war and nobody came?" Wag the Dog puts an off-kilter spin on that old chestnut: Suppose the interest was genuine but the war was fictitious?

Shot in an economical 29 days, this 1997 film stars Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman as a top-level Washington spin doctor and Hollywood producer, respectively, who team up to take the nation’s attention away from a Presidential sex scandal less than two weeks before Election Day. They do this by fabricating a war with Albania, complete with disinformation, misinformation, and the sort of non-denial denials that have become all too common in American politics in the past quarter century or so. As a matter of fact, one of the running jokes is Hoffman’s continual disgust at the mustiness of the slogan employed by the incumbent in his television ads: "Don’t change horses in midstream." This line was formerly used by another President, Abraham Lincoln -- in 1864!

Another theme is the gullibility of the media and the general public. It couldn’t be this easy to dupe an entire nation, could it? "What do people remember about the Gulf War?" De Niro asks. "A bomb falling down a chimney. We filmed that with a 10-inch model made out of Legos!" When you think about it, that’s not so implausible; after all, George Lucas has made millions from similar special effects.

(For another take on artificial reality, check out Capricorn One from nearly two decades earlier. If you think it’s easy to convince people that an actress running toward the camera holding a bag of chips is really a war-torn refugee fleeing her homeland clutching a cat, you should see how effortlessly one can con the country into believing in successful manned space flight to Mars.)

The screenplay by David Mamet gives every actor at least one moment to shine. Among the supporting cast are William H. Macy (a former Mamet student) as a CIA operative who knows two things for sure, Anne Heche as a White House staffer with instant access to the President, Denis Leary as one of Hoffman’s go-to guys, and Kirsten Dunst as the "refugee" who isn’t allowed to put her performance on her resume reel.

Wag the Dog may not be a classic film, but it certainly has some classic moments and great lines: Willie Nelson as the songwriter-for-hire ("Albania’s hard to rhyme"); Hoffman’s response for whatever new crisis threatens to derail the deception ("This is nothing!"); and De Niro’s deadpan deliveries ("I’m working on it" and "It must be true – I saw it on television") are first among many that come to mind. And some of the musical satire is dead on; the rousing "American Dream" is every bit as anthemic as "We Are the World," and Merle Haggard’s "Courage Mom" would fit right in with the rest of the Hag’s set list.

The DVD has some nifty extras, including commentary from Hoffman and director Barry Levinson, a feature called From Washington to Hollywood and Back, and a political essay titled The Line Between Truth and Fiction. The disc is also double-sided, with one side displaying the film in its original widescreen format and the other showing the film in fullscreen mode. (Why anyone would choose the latter is beyond me, but as Mark Twain once said, "It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.")

Best of all, the film offers plenty of food for thought. Granted, the televised images of current conflicts in Iraq and elsewhere aren’t created out of whole cloth, but think about who controls the information pipelines. Consider the various viewpoints of international print and broadcast media, which often provide a starkly different perspective on world events from that proffered by the U.S. cable channels. And think about that whole changing horses analogy. Does something that made sense in 1864 have any bearing 140 years later, especially when that horse isn’t crossing a stream but is in much more turbulent waters… and in way over his head?

---> GET YOUR COPY OF THE DVD HERE <---