Wag the Dog (DVD, 1998)

The only people allowed to laugh at Hollywood are those who have become massive successes in tinseltown. So Barry Levinson, Dustin Hoffman and Robert de Niro are alowed mocking privileges denied to lesser mortals. In this film they combine in a fast-moving, brilliant spoof. The President has been caught in a sexual misdemeanour and Robert de Niro is hired to divert the public's attention from the news. To achieve this he collaborates with Dustin Hoffman to present the public with a war in Albania, created and viewed on television according to the rules of Hollywood. The war exists only on television and is ended when a political opponent states on television that the war is over. The only reality is "I saw it on television". Hoffman refuses to accept that "his" war is ended and a surrealistic sequence of events unfolds to resuscitate the illusion of an ongoing war and its aftermath. Reality finally takes over when the spin is successful and government takes steps to gather any loose threads. The film breaks all the rules (no love interest, no titanic struggle of good and evil) and succeeds in building fantasy on fantasy to produce a magnificent spoof that manages to out-Lewinsky the Lewinsky story.

Hubby and I love this movie. Love the perfect casting and how much more appropriate could the timing have been of President Clinton and Ms. Lewinski in the Oval Office. An Armenian war was not created during that time but too bad it wasn't .... it would have taken the heat off of Bill and Hillary could have let Bill back in the bedroom with his sax!

We actually bought this movie because it was so cleverly written and the cast is perfect. Love it. I give it 5 stars!

This movie is a little hard to follow at times. The plot was good as well as the acting and I felt it discribed politics as well as the ecentric Hollywood people perfectly. Sit down with nothing else going on around you and you"ll enjoy watching Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman steer their presidential canidate success around every obstacle thrown at them....

Love this movie. I've referred to it several times in conversations. It's a movie that really sticks with you. It makes you seriously wonder and scrutinize what you view on t.v. I love the fact the time-frame of the movie was centered around the term of Bill Clinton's presidency. I would and have recommended this movie to people of all ages.

One of the best political movies of all times. It takes a look at the man behind the man, and makes you wonder who is really running the show. It came out about the time of a sax playing ex-press. had a run in with a certain blue dress. There are alot of VERY FUNNY undertones and has a great twist... just how much do the American people really know about what is going on in DC... just take a look and you will be shocked.