150 Word Review: 'Wag The Dog' (1997)
Howling at the moon
I prefer David Mamet’s screenplays to his plays, especially movies like Wag the Dog, where he was paid to punch up Hilary Henkin’s original script. He takes himself less seriously as a hired hack versus a Pulitzer-winning Man of the Theatre.s
Mamet’s right-wing predilections are present in director Barry Levinson’s very ’90s political satire: the specter of President Bill Clinton’s affairs and military actions hangs over this story of a degenerate POTUS whose fixers stage a fake war with the help of an egocentric Hollywood producer to deflect from a sex scandal. The fixers are played by a schlubby Robert De Niro and a high-strung Ann Heche. Partisan hacks.
DeNiro’s normcore character is especially memorable: evil wears a bowtie. But the show belongs to Dustin Hoffman doing his impersonation of legendary spray-tanned mega-producer Robert Evans. He brings the razzle-dazzle to a conspiracy. What was outrageous then is now eerily plausible.
Really great take on how Hoffman steals the show here. The way he channels that Hollywood producer energy makes the absurdity totally believeable, which is what makes the conspiracy work. Watched this in collage and the media manipulation stuff felt over the top then but now its basically just tuesday. That evil-wearing-a-bowtie observation is spot on tho.