Wag the Dog (1997)

Directed by Barry Levinson. Starring Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Anne Heche, Denis Leary, Andrea Martin, John Michael Higgins, Woody Harrelson, William H. Macy, Willie Nelson, Craig T. Nelson, Kirsten Dunst, Suzie Plakson. [R]

On the brink of a presidential sex scandal being exposed less than two weeks before the election, political fixer De Niro recruits a Robert Evans-esque Hollywood producer (Hoffman) to engineer a phony war with Albania purely as a distraction tactic. As scripted by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet from Larry Beinhart’s “American Hero,” its cynicism toward government degeneracy and public gullibility is old hat by now (if recurrently timely); although the house of cards these spin doctors build is disturbingly plausible, it still feels like some stiff wind should have knocked it over somewhere along the way. However, the satire is still sharp enough to draw blood, and its cast came to play, with special marks for Hoffman’s mannered confidence (“This is nothing”). More than enough on-target jabs and laugh-out-loud moments to rate as one of Hollywood’s better political “hit pieces”…that proved almost prophetic when the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal broke shortly after the film’s release (followed by a bombing campaign in Iraq). And never forget that you don’t change horses midstream. Nelson went unbilled in his small role as the president’s election opponent.

81/100