"Wag the Dog" is a biting satire of U.S. Presidential politics. It has been compared to "Dr. Strangelove", and indeed it is similar in feel: both films mine for humor by demonstrating how ludicrous seemingly ordinary events and conversations can become, when the participants have lost their perspective of what they are doing.
But "Wag the Dog" is no "Dr. Strangelove". It is too talky, too self-satisfied, too cynical, and often annoying in its excessive, needless use of obscenity. While there is a grain of truth in this tale of spin doctors replacing reality with phony and manipulating images, the notion is remarkably condescending that the media and the public would follow like sheep in whatever direction they are led.
The plot has the President getting into an
unrecoverable scandal two weeks before
re-election. He has had perhaps non-consensual
sex with an underage girl, and this is the
subject of many sly jokes (as if it could
actually be funny). Robert De Niro plays a
Presidential aide who wants the U.S. to start a
war with Albania to take the focus from the
President's shenanigans. He enlists Hollywood
producer Dustin Hoffman, idea man Denis Leary,
and songwriter Willie Nelson to fabricate this
war and its images. Things get even more
preposterous as a soldier chosen randomly to be a
war hero turns out to be a psychotic nun-raper
(This is also supposed to be funny: Does
Hollywood believe that rape is a subject for
comedy?)
Sometimes the black comedy does find its target.
Willie Nelson conducts a group of singers
slogging their phony way through a manipulative
song, and the satire catches it perfectly. Also
effective are political ads with the lame slogan
"Don't change horses in mid-stream" that appear
endlessly on TV monitors. But while it is good to
see the taboo against parodying U.S. patriotism
broken, the joke of tossing old shoes in support
of servicemen is a groaner.
On the whole, this film is a major
disappointment. The depiction of a presidential
administration that is essentially controlled by
spin artists creating fantasy events for short
term media payoffs, swallowed whole by the media
and a public that completely ignores substance
for spectacle, is smug and shallow and (worst of
all) not often funny. (42/100)
When a Firefly Girl accuses the president of sexual misconduct in the Oval Office less than two weeks before the upcoming election White House officia...More at Family Video
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.