Enter the dubious strategist Conrad Brean and the presidential advisor Winifred Ames. Together with Hollywood producer Stanley Motss, they create a major diversion to keep the President in office. What they devise is nothing less than a war with a country which, as yet, knows nothing about it. They had just managed to find one with which the United States has so far not been involved in conflict, even on film. Everything seems to be going well until the CIA and the opposition take over the command of the production in an unusual way. Brean, Ames and Motss work overtime to keep the lie and the President going. If an illegal immigrant has to be sworn in in a hurry as an American citizen, or a rapist has to be hyped up as a national hero, so be it...
 

• If there is one good thing about Wag the Dog, it is excellent timing. But had President Clinton not made sexual advances on a woman in his charge after production had already began, and had the scandal not been followed by the renewed threat of war against Iraq, Wag the Dog would have been put down as pure Hollywood theory. A few months later the film would even have been categorised as opposition polemic. Now, Clinton's diversion is almost more embarassing than the misdeed itself - but the Americans swallowed it all the same. But even without current affairs [no pun intended!], Wag the Dog is a biting political satire for all who are unable to warm to the new North American slapstick generation, but still like to have a good laugh for an hour and a half. Since only the screenplay is by David Mamet (based on Larry Beinhart's novel American Hero), and Barry Levinson directed, the never-ending chatter of the characters is still quite bearable.

Filmdata:

Official link: http://www.wag-the-dog.com/