Wag the Dog

Election Day is 14 days away and the President of the United States (Michael Belson) is caught fondling with a girl scout in the White House Oval Office. His re-election campaign slogan “Don’t change horses in midstream” is blatantly worthless following the media’s uprising in regards to the scandal.

Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro) and Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) are recruited to distract voters from the presidential sex scandal. What ensues is clever and astonishing yet, in every respect, degrading of the country’s citizens.

Within hours, the United States is fighting a war with Albania. Stanley was able to hire an Albanian-looking girl to run through an imaginary Albanian-like village holding a bag of Tostitos Tortilla Chips and ideally fighting for her life. (The scene was later edited and the bag of chips was replaced with a dying white cat at the behest of the President.) War cries and volatile ruckus could be heard in the background. The scene is ridiculously pathetic but intricately fabricated.

The footage of the Albanian orphan is played and replayed across major media outlets. And although the Albanian embassy in the United States repeatedly refuted the war in Albania saying there is no such thing, the American people fall in love with the prospect. This is laughably appalling and somewhat disgraceful. The idea that the American people can so easily be manipulated by the media is ludicrous.

The President’s fallacious agenda for re-election continues despite some serious road blocks. The most comical incident occurs when Stanley, Conrad, and Winifred Ames (Anne Heche) embark on a mission to find a war hero- later identified as Old Shoe. When the Hollywood producers realize their war hero is actually a psychotic Army man convicted of raping a nun, the story peaks, then crashes, literally. The plane destined to deliver the war hero, Sergeant William Schumann (Woody Harrelson), who had been left behind on the battlefield, never reached its final destination.

Patriotism is at an all time high. The President of the United States has successfully ended a war between the Albanians and revolutionaries. An American soldier is accidently (purposefully for the sake of Hollywood) left behind to continue the fight for justice and democracy. The war hero dies “behind enemy lines” and the President is deemed the savior.

Could this actually happen in the real world? Is it possible to embellish a non-existing war to the extent of winning a presidential election? I don’t think so. This tale could never take place. Surely, we are too sophisticated. However, I am convinced that inappropriate, scumbag-esque issues relating to a specific candidate, like a sex scandal, can easily be diminished during election times. Wag the Dog is a phenomenal film lacking legitimacy.