Review of Wag the Dog (1997) by R.c. K — 14 Sep 2007

I'd started hearing about this movie a fair bit over the last couple of months for whatever reason, and since it was cheap I finally picked it up.

It's about a presidential scandal that the PR folk for the President attempt to work out by distracting the media eleven days before election day. Of course, they choose a war to distract the public, but don't actually begin one, they simply fake one. The script is very witty (with David Mamet's name attached, this is probably not any great shock). Satirical through and through, rather unsurprisingly.

We've got Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman in the primary roles, as well, we've got some good material. Dustin plays something I think he's terribly good at; ultra-Hollywood people. Very flighty and entrenched in "the lingo" as well as "the system"--amazingly clever, but not very intelligent somehow. Just fascinating and funny characters.

Throw in some cameos from William H. Macy, Woody Harrelson, Andrea Martin and Denis Leary, and it's a pretty damn good, pretty damn funny, briskly paced very entertaining 90-something minutes. Definitely was worth it. I guess also kind of a preparation for my purchase of Network tomorrow in a way. I'm rather excited about that one.

Anyway, this is probably a crap review, but right now I just don't care. So there. It was good, that's enough. (2/27/06).