Politics makes strange bedfellows, and in “Wag the Dog,” the strangeness reaches critical mass.
This movie, a medium-budget venture with big-budget stars (Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Woody Harrelson), is a savage political satire about a thoroughly twisted presidential campaign, with out-of-control spin doctors leading the public astray in the heat of electoral battle.
At its best, “Wag” is sharp, irreverent, fresh, glib and amusingly cynical — not a total success but a daring, slaphappy operation whose high points go off like firecrackers. In the film’s unholy alliance of show biz and politics, director Barry Levinson and company have come close to finding an ultimate comic symbol of the breakdown of reality in our culture: mega-movie producer-titan Stanley Motss (Hoffman) and deep-cover media manager Conrad Brean (De Niro) hook up malevolently to save a damaged president.
Hoffman and De Niro have an actor’s ball in “Wag the Dog,” which was made by De Niro’s Tribeca production company and shot by Oliver Stone’s cinematographer Robert Richardson in less than a month. The movie shows off some of the advantages of speed, economy and a good script (by David Mamet and Hilary Henkin). It offers murderously smart and funny dialogue and world-class performances from most of its cast, obviously excited by the screenplay’s audacity.
“Wag the Dog” begins with a lecherous U.S. president running for a second term, who’s accused, two weeks before the election, of molesting a teenage girl — a member of the apocryphal “Firefly Girls” — in the Oval Office. With the scandal about to hit, the White House, spearheaded by presidential aide Winifred Ames (Anne Heche), brings in Brean, a cleanup man who specializes in crises.
Desperate to divert attention for the last 11 days of what had been a sleepy campaign favoring the incumbent president, Brean decides to whip up something that will drive the irate Firefly Girl to a back page: a non-existent war with a small, not too obstreperous country. To play this minor heavy role, Brean picks Albania. “Why Albania?” he’s asked. “Why not?” he shrugs.
To package the Albanian war, Brean turns to Hollywood — and to Stanley Motss, (the “t” is silent), an upper-echelon producer who brings in his own experts, including a trend-spotter and tie-in whiz called The Fad King (Denis Leary). Soon the Albanian “conflict” is in full swing: and the public is treated to scenes — digitally enhanced and shot in a studio — of a terrified girl (Kirsten Dunst) fleeing a burning village with a kitten in her arms. Country songwriter Johnny Green (Willie Nelson), fresh out of the asylum, whips up patriotic pop ballads. The Fad King imagines endless spinoffs.
As the plots thicken, crisis after crisis erupts, all greeted by Motss with his mantra “This is nothing!”
When the opposing party, headed by dour candidate Senator Neal (Craig T. Nelson), strikes back, the spin teams’ antagonists succeed in calling off the non-existent digitalized war. And Motss and Brean have to scramble back: To insure maximum media coverage, they invent a fictitious P.O.W. called Shoe (Woody Harrelson), who proves to be a psychotic killer in need of constant medication.
The probable collision of Motss and Brean is the weak point of the scheme. Can Brean deal with Motss’ lust for fame and credit? Can Motss cope with Brean’s hectoring?
Courtesy of Mamet (responsible for all the dialogue, Levinson claims), “Wag the Dog” has some of the sharpest speeches of the year. But what really makes the movie work is its relaxed, effortless pace. The story is staged and shot in a deceptively laid-back style and rhythm reminiscent of Robert Altman political satires “Nashville” and “Tanner ’88.”
Levinson, like Altman, gives his actors room to stretch and cavort. Hoffman has rarely been funnier, and he benefits from his frequent interplay with De Niro, who, essentially, plays his straight man.
Hoffman’s Motss is allegedly a sendup of Robert Evans, producer of “The Godfather” and “The Cotton Club” — and also of Hoffman’s 1976 thriller “Marathon Man.” We can’t know how much Mamet was thinking of someone like Evans, but Hoffman uses Evans’ mannerisms and sensitive fashion-plate persona, to devastating effect.
De Niro gives a measured, quietly menacing comic performance. What Brean is, we realize, is the ultimate political cynic; the man who believes in nothing but the victory.
The other actors get into the rhythm too — especially Heche. But there’s a flaw or two in “Wag the Dog.”
“American Hero,” the Larry Beinhart book on which this movie originally was based, was about George Bush and Desert Storm; it suggested, daringly, that that war was faked. In switching the story to an absurd imaginary war and a sex scandal — and the president from a Bush-like figure to a Clinton-ish one — the script is obviously trying to be more contemporary.
But it’s hard to believe that this kind of coverup would work, given the effects of Watergate, Iran-Contra or the daily rumbles we get in Washington, D.C., today. And wouldn’t the other side, Senator Neal’s bunch, be playing just as dirty? The premise is screwy, and the disdain isn’t evenly enough distributed.
“Wag the Dog” is so obsessed with its core satiric idea — the phony war — that it tends to miss the rest of Washington. Yet the movie’s single-mindedness and audacity are also part of its strength. Watching it you may wonder: Does anyone really believe any more in the honesty, integrity or decency of professional politicians? Certainly not in Hollywood — where the makers of “Wag the Dog” pay politicians and their managers the ultimate insult of imagining that they act just like junior movie moguls.
”WAG THE DOG”
(star) (star) (star) 1/2
Directed by Barry Levinson; written by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet; photographed by Robert S. Richardson; edited by Stu Linder; production designed by Wynn Thomas; music by Mark Knopfler; produced by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro, Levinson. A Tribeca release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:40. MPAA rating: R. Language, sensuality, nudity, violence.
THE CAST
Stanley Motss ……………….. Dustin Hoffman
Conrad Brean ………………… Robert De Niro
Winifred Ames ……………….. Anne Heche
The Fad King ………………… Denis Leary
Johnny Green ………………… Willie Nelson
Liz Butsky ………………….. Andrea Martin
Tracy Lime ………………….. Kirsten Dunst
William “Old Shoe” Schumann …. Woody Harrelson
