Film · TMDB
6.9During the final weeks of a presidential race, the President is accused of sexual misconduct. To distract the public until the election, the President's adviser hires a Hollywood producer to help him stage a fake war.
Released: 1997-12-2597 minDir: Barry LevinsonComedy, Drama
Cast
- Dustin Hoffman as Stanley Motss
- Robert De Niro as Conrad Brean
- Anne Heche as Winifred Ames
- Woody Harrelson as Sergeant William Schumann
- Denis Leary as Fad King
- Willie Nelson as Johnny Dean
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Ratings
IMDb
7.1/10
93,551 votes
via
Article
Wag the Dog is a 1997 American political satire black comedy film starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. Produced and directed by Barry Levinson, the film centers on a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer who fabricate a war in Albania to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal. The screenplay by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet is loosely adapted from Larry Beinhart's 1993 novel American Hero.
Wag the Dog was released one month before the news broke of the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal and eight months before the bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan by the Clinton administration in August 1998, which prompted the media to draw comparisons between the film and reality. The comparison was also made in December 1998, when the administration initiated a bombing campaign of Iraq during Clinton's impeachment trial for the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal. It was made again in spring 1999, when the administration intervened in the Kosovo War and initiated a bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, which, coincidentally, bordered Albania and contained ethnic Albanians.