Wag the Dog (1997) on Netflix
The President is days from an election when a sex scandal breaks. Spin doctor Conrad Brean and Hollywood producer Stanley Motss stage a fake war in Albania to divert attention.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb7.1/1094,204 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes86%
Trailer
Plot summary
Less than two weeks before the election, the President is caught in a scandal over advances on an underage girl in the Oval Office, and his re-election looks doubtful. Presidential aide Winifred Ames brings in Conrad Brean, a spin doctor, to shift attention away from the scandal. Brean settles on a made-up war in Albania and hires Hollywood producer Stanley Motss to build it, down to a theme song and invented footage of a fleeing orphan. The hoax works at first, and the President gains ground in the polls. The CIA gets wind of the scheme, and Agent Charles Young is sent to confront Brean.
Cast
- Michael Belsonas President
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Wag the Dog (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Dustin Hoffman's character Stanley Motss is said to have been directly based on producer Robert Evans, sharing his work habits, mannerisms, quirks, clothing style, hairstyle and large, square-framed eyeglasses; Evans is said to have joked, "I'm magnificent in this film".
- The film was released one month before the news broke of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and eight months before the Clinton administration bombed the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan in August 1998, prompting the media to draw comparisons between the film and these events.
- Hoffman had originally planned to portray a similar character in the 1984 film The Muppets Take Manhattan, but pulled out fearing that Evans would have been offended by the portrayal.
- After Barry Levinson became attached as director, David Mamet was hired to rewrite Hilary Henkin's screenplay; when the Writers Guild gave Henkin first-position shared credit, Levinson threatened to quit the Guild, claiming Mamet had written all the dialogue and created the characters of Motss and William Schumann.
- Comparisons returned in December 1998, when the administration bombed Iraq during Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, and in spring 1999, when it bombed Yugoslavia, which borders Albania and has an ethnic Albanian population.
