| Wag the Dog | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Barry Levinson |
| Screenplay by | |
| Based on | American Hero 1993 novel byLarry Beinhart |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Robert Richardson |
| Edited by | Stu Linder |
| Music by | Mark Knopfler |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release dates |
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Running time | 97 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15 million[1] |
| Box office | $64.3 million[2] |
Wag the Dog is a 1997 American black comedypolitical satire film starringDustin Hoffman andRobert De Niro.[1] Produced and directed byBarry Levinson, the film centers on aspin doctor and a Hollywoodproducer who fabricate a war inAlbania to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal. The screenplay byHilary Henkin andDavid Mamet is loosely adapted fromLarry Beinhart's 1993 novelAmerican Hero.
Wag the Dog was released one month before the news broke of theClinton–Lewinsky scandal and thebombing of theAl-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan by theClinton administration in August 1998, which prompted the media to draw comparisons between the film and reality.[3] The comparison was also made in December 1998, when the administration initiated abombing campaign of Iraq during Clinton'simpeachment trial for the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal.[4] It was made again in spring 1999, when the administration intervened in theKosovo War and initiated abombing campaign againstYugoslavia, which, coincidentally, bordered Albania and contained ethnic Albanians.[5]
The film grossed $64.3 million on a $15 million budget, and was well received by critics, who praised the direction, performances, themes and humor. Hoffman received a nomination for theAcademy Award for Best Actor for his performance, and screenwritersDavid Mamet andHilary Henkin were both nominated forBest Adapted Screenplay.
The President of the United States is caught making advances on an underage girl inside theOval Office less than two weeks before the election. Conrad Brean, a topspin doctor, is brought in by presidential aide Winifred Ames to take the public's attention away from the scandal. He decides to construct a fictional war in Albania, hoping that the media will concentrate on this instead. Brean contactsHollywood producer Stanley Motss to create the war, complete with a theme song and fake film footage of a fleeing orphan to arouse sympathy. The hoax is initially successful, with the president quickly gaining ground in the polls.
When theCIA learns of the plot, it sends Agent Young to confront Brean about the hoax. Brean convinces Young that revealing the deception is against his and the CIA's best interests. But when the CIA—in collusion with the president's rival candidate—reports that the war has ended, the media begins to revert its focus to the president's sexual misconduct scandal. To counter this, Motss invents a hero who was left behind enemy lines in Albania.
Inspired by the idea that he was "discarded like an old shoe", Brean and Motss ask the Pentagon to provide a special forces soldier with a matching name (a sergeant named "Schumann" is identified), around whom aPOW narrative can be constructed. As part of the hoax, folk singer Johnny Dean records a song called "Old Shoe", which is pressed onto a78-rpm record, prematurely aged so that listeners will think that it was recorded years earlier and sent to theLibrary of Congress to be "found". Bream and Motss fling pairs of old shoes into a tree outside of theWhite House grounds. Soon, large numbers of shoesbegin appearing on phone and power lines, and agrassroots movement to bring home Schumann takes hold, completing a successfulastroturfing.
When the team goes to retrieve Schumann, they discover that he is actually a criminally insane Army convict. On the return toAndrews Air Force Base, their plane crashes. The team survives and is rescued by a farmer, an illegal alien. However, Schumann is killed when he attempts to rape a gas station owner's daughter. Seizing the opportunity, Motss stages an elaborate military funeral for Schumann, claiming that he died from wounds sustained during his rescue, and the farmer receives expedited citizenship for a better story.
As the President rallies toward re-election, Motss becomes frustrated that the media are crediting his upsurge in the polls to the bland campaign slogan, "Don't change horses in mid-stream", rather than to Motss's hard work. Despite Brean's offer of an ambassadorship and the dire warning that he is "playing with his life", Motss demands that he receive credit for his production, and he threatens to reveal his involvement unless he gets it. Realizing that he has no choice, Brean orders his security staff to kill him. A newscast reports that Motss has died of a heart attack at home, the president has been successfully re-elected, and an Albanian terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for a recent bombing, suggesting that the fake war is becoming real.
The title of the film comes from the English-languageidiom "the tail wagging the dog"[6] which is referenced at the beginning of the film by a caption that reads:
Why does the dog wag its tail?
Because a dog is smarter than its tail.
If the tail were smarter, it would wag the dog.
Hoffman's character, Stanley Motss, is said to have been directly based on famed producerRobert Evans. Similarities have been noted between the character and Evans's work habits, mannerisms, quirks, clothing style, hairstyle and large, square-framed eyeglasses. In fact, the real Evans is said to have joked, "I'm magnificent in this film".[7]
While Hoffman has never discussed deriving his portrayal from Evans, thecommentary track for the film'sDVD release makes the claim.[citation needed] Hoffman had originally planned to portray the character in the 1984 filmThe Muppets Take Manhattan but pulled out of that film fearing that Evans would have been offended by the portrayal.[8]
Writing credits for the film became controversial due to objections by Barry Levinson. After Levinson became attached as director,David Mamet was hired to rewriteHilary Henkin's screenplay, which was loosely adapted fromLarry Beinhart's novel,American Hero.
Given the close relationship between Levinson and Mamet,New Line Cinema asked that Mamet be given sole credit for the screenplay. However, theWriters Guild of America intervened on Henkin's behalf to ensure that Henkin received first-position shared screenplay credit, finding that, as the original screenwriter, Henkin had created the screenplay's structure, as well as much of the screen story and dialogue.[9]
Levinson threatened to quit the Guild (but he did not), claiming that Mamet had written all of the dialogue, as well as creating the characters of Motss and Schumann, and had originated most of the scenes set in Hollywood, and all of the scenes set in Nashville. Levinson attributed the numerous similarities between Henkin's original version and the eventual shooting script to Henkin and Mamet working from the same novel, but the Writers Guild of America disagreed in its credit arbitration ruling.[10]
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The film features many songs created for the fictitious campaign waged to deflect the president's sex scandal. These include "Good Old Shoe", "The American Dream" and "The Men of the 303". However, the film’s soundtrackCD features only the title track (by British guitarist and vocalistMark Knopfler) and seven of Knopfler'sinstrumentals.[11]
In a contemporary review,Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times awarded the film four stars out of four, and wrote in his review, "The movie is a satire that contains just enough realistic ballast to be teasingly plausible; likeDr. Strangelove, it makes you laugh, and then it makes you wonder."[12] He ranked it as his tenth favorite film of 1997.[13]
In 2020,Ann Hornaday ofThe Washington Post rated it at number 12 on her list of the best political movies ever made.[14]
Wag the Dog has an approval rating of 86% onRotten Tomatoes, based on 78 reviews, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Smart, well-acted, and uncomfortably prescient political satire from director Barry Levinson and an all-star cast."[15] OnMetacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating, the film holds a score of 74 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[16] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on a scale of A+ to F.[17]
Wag the Dog was released onVHS on November 3, 1998, and onDVD on November 15, 2005.[30][31] It is not available onBlu-ray.[32]
On April 27, 2017,Deadline reported that Barry Levinson, Robert De Niro andTom Fontana were developing a television series based on the film forHBO. De Niro'sTriBeCa Productions was to co-produce, along with Levinson's and Fontana's companies.[33]
A gloriously cynical black comedy that functions as a wicked smart satire on the interlocking world of politics and show business ...
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