Released 1997
Stars Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Anne Heche, Denis Leary, Willie Nelson William H. Macy, Craig T. Nelson, Woody Harrelson
Directed by Barry Levinson

Hollywood and Presidential politics - perfect together. Anyone who doubts this simple maxim will face a challenge to their opinion when they see Wag the Dog, the hilarious new satire from director Barry Levinson. For, although this film is one of the funniest comedies of the year, it also carries a serious, thought-provoking message about the relationship between politics and mass- market entertainment. This is one of Levinson's best films, and the screenplay, co-penned by noted writer David Mamet, is brilliantly on-target.

The premise is relatively simple. Only two weeks before election day, a sitting president is hit by a sex scandal. A brief dalliance with a Firefly Girl becomes public knowledge, and now his 17% lead is about to plummet. Winifred Ames, one of the President's top aides, calls in spin doctor extraordinary, Conrad Bream (Robert De Niro). Conrad goes to work immediately, deciding that the best way to get the public's mind off the Firefly Girl is to give them something bigger to think about. "Change the story, change the lead" is his motto, so he decides to manufacture a war against Albania. Why Albania? Because the name sounds sinister and no one in the United States knows anything about the country.

Conrad decides that he and Winifred can't do it alone. They need help, so they go to big-time Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman). He has never won an Academy Award, but he's more than willing to help stage the war. They'll need slogans, a theme song, merchandising links, and sympathetic characters. Soon, carefully-controlled leaks to the press make it to the evening news, and everyone is reporting about the outbreak of hostilities between the United States and Albania, even though no troops have been moved and no shots have been fired. Actual battles don't matter, however, because, if it's on television, it must be real.

To avoid making Wag the Dog sound too much like an intellectual challenge, let me make this clarification: the movie is intelligent, but it's also a lot of fun. This is the kind of film that you can laugh and think your way through. I look forward to seeing it another time, and I think I'll enjoy it as much, if not more. No matter what your political persuasion is, or how cynically you regard the goings-on in Washington, you will be entertained. Let's just hope Wag the Dog isn't too close to the mark in its depiction of specific events.

Summary by James Berardinell