Rating: 
Summary: A very important movie: How the news is manipulated
Review: This is a very important movie--it's wickedly funny, yes, but it has a very serious point to tell. If you wonder how all three networks jump on a single story (just why is Medicare presciption benefits the lead today ... and not yesterday?) this movie will show you how the White House and the Press feed off one another.Real-life movie director Robert Evans, was said to be flattered by Dustin Hoffman's parody of him here. He should be. It's hard to say whether Hoffman's self-absorbed producer or De Niro's world-weary PR flak is the best performance: Both outdid themselves in their characterizations. Willie Nelson makes a cameo appearance, singing beautifully as ever, and having the courage to do a nice parody of Willie Nelson--that itself is worth the price of admission. The plot occasionally degenerates into farce (a plane crash in which all the principals survive, for example) but if you can overlook this heavy-handedness, there is much truth in this movie. It's worth owning this movie--play it for your friends and they'll understand where the news comes from.
Rating: 
Summary: Silly when you stop to think about it for five minutes
Review: I love conspiracy theory movies, and I love the premise of this movie, but the execution doesn't work, and maybe there's no way it could. We're asked to believe the president stages a war. Fine, but then we see this "war" being waged on a TV soundstage with...I dunno...about two hundred extras, technicians, editors, directors, camera operators, etc. And all these people are going to keep the secret that they're so worried about *Hoffman* blowing? It kind of reminds me of the problems with all the Kennedy Assasination conspiracy theories: if it were as complicated as the conspiracy nuts have it, there's be so many people involved that the secret would be out in ten minutes. Yet, miraculously, the only person anyone is worried about is Hoffman. And with all the trouble they have to go through to stage this "war," one begins to wonder if it wouldn't be simpler to just have a real one in Albania. Today's reporters aren't independent-minded enough to question it. Then there's the plane crash, which Heche, Hoffman et al escape from with scarcely a scratch, even though the plane is destroyed. I found myself staring at the screen in disblieve, even asking out loud "Did the plane CRASH?!?" If I recall (it's admittedly been a while) Hoffman even has his glasses afterwards. Anyone who's even been in an automobile accident would know what a ridiculous proposition this is. With all the talk about how "realistic" and "believable" this movie is, I think just the opposite: it can't hold its proposition together. A better and more believable movie on political hanky-panky is the excellent Primary Colors, which came out around the same time. While Travolta may be a little over the top as the Clintonesque president, at least PC didn't have the plot holes that WTD did.
Rating: 
Summary: More relevant than ever
Review: This bracing satire on Washington-style spin will have you laughing so hard you'll be struggling to keep up with David Mamet's typically quick-witted dialogue. De Niro is great as spin master Conrad Brean, but Dustin Hoffman steals the show as Hollywood epic producer Stanley Moss: his greatest disappointment in life is that "there is no Oscar for producing", and he sees the virtual war he's engaged to produce as his final shot at recognition. Historically associated with the White House's handling of the Lewinsky saga, "Wag The Dog" is just as relevant in the current political climate, perhaps more so: there are some sobering moments when the fatuous hubris cooked up to justify American foreign policy sounds remarkably, chillingly, familiar.
Rating:
Summary: It could have happened!
Review: Wag the Dog is a clever film about how the media and some government insiders manufacture a war to divert the American public from the latest presidential scandal, where he is with a schoolgirl in a beret. Ironically, this movie came out in late 1997 just when the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal -- complete with beret --- broke out and Clinton suddenly started proposing a war with Iraq. The movie is funny but also unnerving as the media insiders (Anne Heche, Robert de Niro, etc) produce everything from a fake news clip (complete with a bratty Kirsten Dunst as a child actress demanding that she can put this top-secret project on her acting resume) to a war hero (a shell-shocked substance-abusing Woody Harrelson) -- all from the war that never was. Funny because it is well-written and well-acted, unnerving because you are never really sure how much is a farce and how much is truth. It all seems a bit real and each step in the grand cover-up snowballs so smoothly into the next that it can really throw you off![.]
Rating:
Summary: Lighten Up
Review: Without being too analizing of every detail of the movie (of which, I had a problem with the plane crash and it had too much chatter, not enough action), I thought this story's overall point is clear. Of course it is going to be off on certain details.. they filmed it in 29 days! But to think that it is completely far-fetched is naive.
Rating: 
Summary: Shockingly bad movie
Review: This movie started with an excellent premise and then flubbed it badly. The movie tries desperately to be clever, and fails terribly. For one, the movie is incredibly far-fetched. During the movie, the spindoctors manufacture fake wars in Albania (complete with fake battle scenes), invent non-existent cultural icons, create fictitious military programs, and so on. The American public buys it all. (We know how stupid they are). Unfortunately, there are millions of people in Albania that know there is no war going on, not to mention Reuters and other news services who are permanently stationed there, etc. Not only is the movie far-fetched, but it is also incoherent and self-contradictory. In the beginning of the movie, there are 4 people in a "war room," one of whom says "if any of this leaks, I'm blaming each of you." By the end of the movie, there is a cast of thousands manufacturing fake battle scenes on a hollywood set, complete with hollywoord actors, etc. We are told that "nobody would ever talk", and the CIA eliminates one participant (out of thousands) to "cover it all up." As if incoherence and absurdity were not enough, the movie is unfunny and totally lacking in subtlety. Toward the end, the "spindoctors" invent a fake military unit that supposedly played a vital role in the fake war. This new military unit has "leopard-skinned uniforms" (seriously). Since the movie was unrealistic, far-fetched, incoherent, and unfunny, I think it's fair to say that it was very bad overall. The movie would have been OK if it were intended as a brainless over-the-top farce. The problem is that the movie positions itself as an expose of how spindoctors manipulate the gullible electorate. The movie takes itself seriously, and is not trying to be funny by being to pointless/absurd/etc. This movie was intended to be like "Dr Stragelove" but inadvertently ended up like "Evil Dead:Army of Darkness."
Rating: 
Summary: Uncannily Plausible but Hardly a Masterpiece
Review: Oh, do I love Robert De Niro! Unfortunately, in this picture he seemed a little artificial, a little too stiff, and what they seemed to have done to his hair and that horrendous beard added to the exaggerated triteness of the character. Naturally, the film was a comedy, a farce of sorts, and that made Dustin Hoffman's eccentric Hollywood character look silly as well. He had to repeat one too many times that "this is the way things are produced" (or something of that sort), and that none of the obstacles in their way of staging a non-existent war against Albania were comparable to what he'd seen in his illustrious career as an underappreciated film producer. I suppose the makers of Wag the Dog got their point across quite clearly, if not way superfluously. Then there was Anne Heche. She was obviously meant to be the butt of all derision and ridicule both for the above two spin doctors and for the viewer. Again, slightly over-zealously, Anne plays Winifred Ames, a presidential staffer of obscure function, who does exactly as told by all but everybody, which naturally necessitates that most of her conscious existence is spent in nervous babble on the mobile phone. At one point, shortly following their miraculous escape from... Of course, they always have to find a slot for a jab at Republicans. Overall though, we remember with fondness how this picture came just in time for the Monica scandal, and there had to be some sort of a cinematic record of the events surrounding those stormy days. Wag the Dog is a fair and mildly entertaining attempt at documenting that unsavoury stage of Clinton's presidency... And, no matter how silly they have done up De Niro's hair, old Bob remains the master of acting as we've known him forever. I'd only suggest he pick his roles more carefully (and he hasn't, as far as I'm concerned, since Wag the Dog was released--is it some kind of slump?).
Rating:
Summary: Prophetic
Review: Mamet's underrated 1997 masterpiece could have been, as one reviewer suggested, ripped off today's headlines. A 'war on terror'? Check. Stirring patriotic tributes? Check. Inept presidency? Check. Top notch presidential spin team? Check... Nah. But the movie still manages to funny, disturbing and relevant at the same time. The moral is take everything you hear with a grain of salt. It is a good message for our confusing times. Go see this movie!
Rating:
Summary: They Tell Us Repeatedly; We Still Don't Listen!
Review: *
I find it truly amazing that whenever Hollywood paints an accurate picture of our political climate, or tries to alert us to our own ignorance, we just don't seem to get it, no matter how many times they try hitting us over the head with the obvious. It becomes evident that ''anti-Red'' scaremonger Joseph McCarthy really didn't need to do much of anything -- he could have just sat back and sipped on his martini, because, in the end, the American public doesn't take political messages in Hollywood movies seriously anyway. Case in point: ''Wag The Dog.'' In a blatant attempt prove to his audience that any kind of media spin desired can be created and executed to benefit any and every political agenda imaginable (as though trying to prepare us ahead of time for the real possibility of an illegal overthrow of "representative democracy" in America, such as occured with the installation of President 'Un-Elect' George Walker Bush), David Mamet shows 'We, the People' just how gullible and how easily manipulated we are by "official looking" and "official sounding" media presentations, ESPECIALLY when "patriotic" themes are involved. Just like G.W. Bush and his associate Republican thugs cooked up a non-existent "War On Terror" to keep the public's mind off of the President's misdeeds and political ineptness, so too do the advisors and insiders of Mamet's fictitious administration of an unnamed President cook up a non-existent "War" against a "terrorist nation" (arbitrarily, Albania -- an insignificant dirt-poor country, just like Afghanistan) in order to keep the public's mind off of the President's alleged misconduct with a "Firefly Girl" (a thinly veiled parallel reference to the sexual misconduct of the last duly elected President in the nation, William Jefferson Clinton). The timing could not have possibly been worse for a scandal to erupt around Mamet's "President," since it is during a point in the presidency where the Commander in Chief is actively seeking re-election. So a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman) has been called in to brainwash and mislead the public with a number of staged manipulative media events all wrapped neatly in the banner of patriotic jingoism. As one of the President's advisers, played by Robert DeNiro, states: "It's a pageant!" Mamet shows us how easily we can get swept up in jingoism to such an extent that we forget to ask the truly important questions and just sit back on our big fat collectives and 'let someone else do the hard thinking for us.' It's how dictatorships are born -- and to quote the words of George W. Bush VERBATIM, as spoken on December 18, 2000, just less than a week after he was "appointed" President by the Supreme Court: ''If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier... just so long as I'm the dictator.''
Rating:
Summary: Deadly American Satire
Review: Really good satire should be both funny and destructive, like Voltaire or Swift or Mark Twain at his darkest. Wag the Dog scores on both counts. The film is on traget in its depiction of Americans as sentimental and gullible dupes who will fall for flag-waving flim-flam and who can be gulled by media hype. The President, a week or so away from re-election, is caught dallying with a 12 year old Firefly Girl in the Oval Office and seems doomed. Enter Robert di Niro as a master crisis manager. He enlists an egomaniacal Hollywood producer (smarmily played by Dustin Hoffman) and an an anxiety-ridden Presidential aide (Ann Heche) in a plot to concoct a phony war with Albania that will draw attention from the scandal. The superb set pieces include the filming of a war-torn orphan girl (Kirsten Dunst in a cameo) fleeing a burning village--all done in a studio, with special effects. The sequence makes you wonder about so many other exclusive bits of news film and also shows the cynicism and manipulation of the media. My very favorite bit involves the writing of a stirring patriotic song by a gin-soaked country star (Willy Nelson). He comes up with some delicious claptrap about guarding the Canadian border (against invading Albanians!!) and then records it with a huge chorus replete with heart-rending solos. The result is a dead-on, riotous send-up of Michael Jackson's "We Are the World." There's also a terrific scene where Di Niro's character cons a straight-arrow CIA agent (William Macy) out of turning him in. When the CIA announces that there is no Albanian threat, the scam artists switch gears and concoct a "war hero" missing behind enemy lines. They pick a soldier named Shoemaker and begin a fad by tossing old shoes over telephone wires (soon everyone is doing this--a glorious attack on the idiotic festooning of yellow ribbons whenever an American is missing somewhere). When they attempt to bring "Old Shoe" (Woody Harrelson) back for a hero's welcome, he turns out to be a psychotic rapist. A plane crash and an infuriated father's shotgun blast later, Old Shoe is dead, and Di Niro and company stage a funeral with a stirring Green Beret type song and a grieving dog. When Hoffman's character refuses to hush up his brilliant producing job, he meets a dark fate. The writing is savage and all too true, and the acting is excellent. I held back a star for the pacing, which seems to me all wrong. A satire like this should crackle and move at a breakneck pace (like Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove), but the film ambles in a style that seems right for a sentimental drama. Still, I laugh and cringe every time I see it.
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