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movie review - Wag the Dog

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This was one of the best movies I've seen in a while. DeNiro plays a spin doctor who must make the save of a lifetime to get the president out of a disasterous scandal (he's slept with a girl guide!) just before the elections. Hoffman is the Hollywood producer DeNiro contracts to make his scheme work.

The scheme is war. The rest of the movie follows the two (and sidekick Anne Heche) as the scheme unravels and every thread is tied, snipped, or sown into a new scheme. It becomes a rapid-fire trek around the country, with dialog like "War - with whom? Um, Albania. Why? Um, let's cook up some footage of um, a girl with a cat. What colour of cat? Um calico. No, the president's on the line - he wants a white cat"

What carries this off is the two central characters. I've heard a fair bit of static about this film - how Clinton's later problems with Lewinsky et al was the source of this film, how it was shot in two weeks during the filming of another movie, etc - but I always come back to the two standout performances, and the great whole that stands above above the sum of those two parts. This is an excellent film, see it (unless you're stomach is turned by amoral and utterly guileless crime in the path of manipulation & condescention - I know I was at times while I watched it).

Strongly recommended.