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.