WAG THE DOG SITS UP AND BARKS
Wag The Dog A Film Review By Michael Redman Copyright 1998 By Michael Redman
***1/2 (out of ****)
As the American public has become increasingly aware in recent years, politics is mostly smoke and mirrors. The truth of a situation is less important than the spin and there's so much spinning in Washington DC it's a wonder the city stays in the same location day after day.
It's 11 days before the election and the President is in trouble. He's accused by a teenage "Firefly Girl" of pressing the flesh a bit too literally in the Oval Office. It's time to do something...anything...about it.
Enter Conrad Bream (Robert De Niro), a "fixer" of the highest magnitude. Bream's take on the situation is that they need something to distract the press until after the vote. What could be more important than the Chief Executive's sexual indiscretions? How about a war with, oh maybe, Albania?
Not a real war of course, but a media creation to distract the public. To pull off the hoax, Bream and White House aid Winifred Ames (Anne Heche) enlist Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman). Motss is into it: this will be his greatest accomplishment.
Bream starts off by ordering a leak that the President's extended stay in China has nothing to do with deploying the new B3 bomber. Not only that, but there is no B3 bomber. When told by staffers that there really is no B3 bomber, he replies "Of course." Deny it and everyone will be convinced that it exists.
The "war" jumps into production with a battle scene shot on a studio stage complete with digitally dubbed village backgrounds, gun fire, flames and a little white kitten in a peasant girl's arms. A planned media event for when the President does return to the country requires rain. When they find out that there will be no rain in Washington, the plane is diverted to Florida so he can give his coat to an Albanian mother thanking him for fighting the terrorists. Nothing is left to chance.
When they do run into problems, Motss takes it in stride. "You think this is hard?" he explains, "Try a 10:00 am pitch meeting coked to the gills and you haven't even read the treatment. That's hard. This is easy." He's in charge. The opposition catches on to the ruse and announces that the war is over. "Over?" the producer shouts, "This war isn't over until I say it's over!"
The film drives home the power of television. Bream's reply is "The war is over. I saw it on television." The public swallows the deception with a spoon and the Firefly incident is safely buried .
The three take their project as far as it will go. Motss wants to nominate the President for the Nobel Peace Prize because he brought peace to the war-torn country. When reminded that there is no war, he explains "All the greater accomplishment."
His crew of experts works towards the illusion. The songwriter (Willie Nelson) creates a "We Are The World" clone to promote patriotism. The Fad King (Denis Leary) hatches a scheme to get the public involved. After all, you didn't really think that those yellow ribbons for the hostages happened because of a groundswell of grass roots support, did you?
The acting is exceptional. Hoffman and De Niro bounce off Heche's naive politico admirably. The two actors have an easy friendship on screen that is an absolute pleasure to watch. This is the first time that they have appeared together (except for one scene in "Sleepers") and the chemistry is apparent. In another review I mentioned that Jack Nicholson may possibly be the best actor working today. If that's not true, Hoffman and De Niro are certainly candidates for the throne.
Woody Harrelson turns in a well-done although small "Billy Bob" performance. Peppered throughout the film are other clever cameos. Especially worth watching is the duet between Nelson and Pops Staples.
Director Barry Levinson ("Tin Men", "Rainman") does an amazing job with David Mamet's script (also credited to Hilary Henkin although Levinson insists that Mamet wrote every word) considering that the film was made with a minuscule budget ($15 million) and shot in only 29 days.
When the crew accidentally ran into President Clinton while filming, he asked what the movie was about. In true form, the actors lied to him.
To pick nits, the introductory explanation of what the title means is unnecessary and demeaning to the audience. We get the idea. It's also a problem that the scheme would never actually work unless the United States were completely isolated from the rest of the world. Are there no reporters sent to Albania to cover the war? If you can force yourself to get past this, everything else falls into place.
The final three minutes are a brave gambit. They completely change the mood of the film and are sure to anger some viewers. It took me quite a while to decide how I felt about the scene, but I finally understood that it added a needed element to the film.
The message of the film is frighteningly accurate. In politics, it doesn't matter what really happens, it only matters how it is handled. Whether the President did indeed molest the girl is never answered because it is irrelevant. In Washington the truth of Clinton's sexual activities isn't really addressed. The important thing is how each sides handles the accusation. Political news is often no more real than the most recent episode of "Seinfeld".
(Michael Redman, after over 22 years of writing this column and much more experience watching the comings and goings of politicians, no longer believes anything. Email lies to redman@bvoice.com.)
[This appeared in the 1/15/98 "Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at redman@bvoice.com]
-- mailto:redman@bvoice.com This week's film review at http://www.bvoice.com/ Film reviews archive at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman
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