Rating: 
Summary: Clinton's Study Guide
Review: It is getting awfully close to the presidential elections and the current president is the focus of the media due to his sex scandal with a younger girl. The president now calls on his staff to help him out of the mess. His aide (Anne Heche) calls on "Mr. Fix It" (Robert DeNiro) to think up the best possible scenario to divert attention from the President's affair. DeNiro then calls on a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman) to assist in devising a phony war that the media and the country will believe. Need a country that the news doesn't talk about? Why not Albania? That is exactly the focus point of their diversionary war. One knows the power of the press and the three main characters find out how to embrace it and exploit it to their advantage. The fake war with Albania must be flawless and believable and it becomes a shadow operation only know by a select few. This film though designated as a comedy seems more like a comedy/drama. Guess this can be considered as a black comedy. Very interesting film with a great cast. Film depicts the backroom planning and espionage that goes into an attempt to save one person and his reputation very well. Seems incredibly close to the things Clinton did to divert attention from his affair. I agree that there are parallels with Clinton's ordeal and this movie. Overall, a very entertaining and intelligent film.
Rating: 
Summary: Perfect
Review: Perhaps the most complete, thorough film examination of American politics, in particular foreign policy considerations, ever.The Acting is superb, especially Hoffman, who carries his character wonderfully. The dialogue is crisp and rattles along at pace. The political insights are rather profound. The film must be watched again and again, and probably should be required viewing for politcal science students - or for everyone for that matter.
Rating: 
Summary: Most overrated movie ever
Review: My husband and I were amazed by this movie. I watched a half hour or so of it, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Then I looked at him, and he clearly couldn't believe it either. We watched the whole thing; it was like a car wreck. The plot stumbles on endlessly. The dialogue and acting are awful. The violence is as pointless as you could get. But the funniest thing about this movie is that it is obviously written, produced, and directed by "fat cats" (this movie provided me with the only occasion where I've ever been tempted to use that term) who have a dim idea of how to be "subversive" that they probably got from watching other movies the week before this travesty was conceived. This movie is like a parent trying to use teenage slang.
Rating:
Summary: superb
Review: " Barry Levinson's comedy... " comedy? satire maybe. while certainly funny at times,the movie could almost be scary if one were to casually embrace (or discard)the idea that we can be that easily manipulated. a previous reviewer suggested the ending was "weak". my first impression. however,the outcome that seemed so predictable,was presented only by the crackling radio voice of the very same media that facilitated all the previous manipulations. superb. also:interesting allusions to john wayne's The Green Berets (not even counting the "men of the 303")
Rating:
Summary: It just couldn't happen....could it???
Review: This is a great movie. the acting is superb - I think Hoffmnn can play ANYTHING! he was funny as a vain movie producer. De Niro and the girl were good too. I like this movie a lot, I like the way it walks the delicate line between fiction and truth. You almost feel that it could happen! How would you know? It got four stars from me because it almost looks as though they made a great film without a sense of how to end it, suddenly decided it was time to find an ending as fast and as easily as possible and just decided to end it the way they did without thought. A great build up to a weak ending. This could have been a first rate film if it had been made with a clever finale.
Rating:
Summary: DeNiro's Second Best
Review: When the President is caught in a sex scandal less than two weeks before the election, White House spinmaster Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro) creates a phony war with the help of Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman). From acclaimed director Barry Levinson and writers Hilary Henkin and David Mamet comes this biting look at American politics and its relationship with the media that we have all come to embrace.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but not enthralling
Review: As a satire, this movie does very well. Especially if you don't like Clinton or politicians in general. However, I never found myself completely hooked in to the whole idea just because it seemed so absurd. In fact, the movie bored me at times. The acting was slightly above average, but nothing spectacular. It makes a good movie if you are in the mood for political satire or just enjoy the political genre in general.
Rating:
Summary: Who Let The Dogs Out--Hollywood Style
Review: With the lifts in his shoes rivaling in height the moussed masses of his hair, Hoffman plays an egomaniacal Hollywood producer who has done it all, seen it all. "You think this is trouble," he says consolingly to his new colleagues from the White House as ever-worse disasters befall them while orchestrating, on a Hollywood soundstage, a fake military attack against the U.S. "Try having three Italian starlets whacked out on Benzedrine and grappa." Wag the Dog, a profoundly cynical but also profoundly funny political satire, takes as its starting position that all politics is show business. The military attack, which Hoffman has been recruited to produce by a top presidential spinmeister (De Niro), is part of a disinformation campaign aimed at distracting voters from the real news that, with an election looming, the fictional current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has dallied in his office longer than prudent with a teenage Fire-Fly Girl. Sound familiar? All good satire is rooted in truth. Sprinting in at only 97 minutes, Wag is a below-the-Beltway comic triumph for director Barry Levinson and his game cast, who shot the film in just 29 days for $15 million. De Niro excels as the shambling shaman, Anne Heche is amusingly uptight as a presidential aide along for the ethical slide, and Woody Harrelson scores with a goofy, unbilled cameo as a pill-popping psycho. But it is Hoffman's toweringly pygmyesque producer (who savvy show business insiders are claiming bears some resemblance to onetime studio head Robert Evans) who is the art and soullessness of the movie. Quirky political satire worth watching & buying.
Rating:
Summary: Dupe Troop
Review: Wag the Dog: rated R, 1 hour and 40 minutes A group of spin-doctors plan to create a diversion to turn the Americans' attention away from a scandal aimed at the president just weeks before the election. Robert De Niro plays Conrad Brean, the intelligence of this group of con artists, who produces the illusion, along with the help of an assistant (Anne Heche), and a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman). Brean thinks of the ideas and Motss (Hoffman) puts them into action. Together they succeed in fooling America and rigging the elections. This movie has no doubt a very clever plot, with many smart, comical points, but it also lacks the image that makes a movie what it is. The characters are exceedingly shallow, and in general, it seems that all the trouble gone through to fake a war can be made easier if instead the efforts were put into helping the president make a new campaign slogan, which is repeatedly made fun of throughout the film. Overall, the ideas are acceptable, yet the execution appears to have failed. Though the movie seems full of humor and canny remarks, the actual message expressed in Wag The Dog is rather disturbing. This poses the question: If America can be deceived so easily at something as difficult to conduct as a war, how would America react to a small scam made up? The film proves how easily the news can be manipulated and controlled. In this movie there is no distinguishing borderline between fact and fiction. The idea that anything seen or heard on the news might be a hoax, the comical punch line of this movie, may not be so funny after all. Wag the Dog, directed by Barry Levinson, also starring Woody Harrelson, is a 'political satire', which becomes less than satisfying, B-.
Rating:
Summary: frighteningly reminiscent of clintonist obfuscation
Review: While I canot say that "Wag The Dog" was "enjoyable" -- much of the dialogue was contrived (as intended since WTD is a bleak comedy), and although the acting is competent, scenes like the crash fell flat as story devices -- I found it worth watching because it seems so disturbingly indicative of contemporary conditions. (I haven't shown it to our kids because the language is offensive.) This is not the place to explain the politics of life to Clinton's defenders, but the spin-doctoring by the administration (aided by media shills riding shotgun) to divert the public's attention from the festering corruption (exemplified by frying people with cruise missiles from Sudan to Afghanistan to Serbia -- remember operation "Desert Firefly/Fox"?) serves as a warning that tyranny usually creeps up on a docile public by stealth, deceit and bribery. Willy Nelson's patriotic war-song sent shivers up my spine because it reminded me how gullible the electorate can be in blindly rallying around demagogues merely because enough voters were bamboozled. WTD is insightfully portrayed satire, because unlike most of the tendentious propaganda (e.g., "The American President") rolling out of Hollywood, it actually illuminates the dark side's manipulation of "information" as performed by the left. (No, there are no such organs on the "right".) WTD is a satirical commentary on our contemporary state of superficial celebrity-driven politics. Those who find such a condition acceptable will probably find the film objectionable. Members of the vast right-wing conspiracy however, will be both amused and bothered.
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