Rating of
1.5/4
"Wag The Dog" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 05/25/12
The selling point for this film is obviously the pairing of De Niro and Hoffman, but for me it was the potential in the idea; that backroom spin doctors manufacture a war to deflect attention from a presidential sex scandal. The initial scenes when De Niro the fixer bustles into the white house and brainstorms ideas ("why Albania?" "Why not?") and later the quickfire banter between he and Hoffman are great fun. But soonafter the satirical bite is replaced by rather feeble farce, a turn for the worse reinforced by Heche's sitcom acting talents and Woody Harrelson's buck-toothed redneck soldier. This could've been a brilliant political satire, but ultimately this dog proved to be toothless.
