Wag the Dog(1997)
New Line Cinema Dec 25, 1997
Shortly before an election, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to fabricate a war in order to cover up a Presidential sex scandal.
Release Details
Original Release | Dec 25, 1997
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Box Office Results
2026-10-03T11:37:01.135Z
Results
$92,079
$43,061,945
$21,194,568
$64,256,513
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Technical Specifications
Sound Mix: DTS,Dolby Digital,SDDS
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Other Details
Country of Origin: United States
Language: English,Albanian
Summaries
Plot Summary
- A dog wags its tail as the dog is smarter than the tail. If the tail was smarter, it would wag the dog.The President (Michael Belson) is caught making advances on an underage girl inside the Oval Office, less than two weeks before the election. Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro), a top spin doctor, is brought in by presidential aide Winifred Ames (Anne Heche) to take the public's attention away from the scandal. The President himself is in China, while Washington Post has the story and is ready to roll with it the following day.Conrad starts by delaying the President's return by 1 day claiming that he got sick in China. And then he floats a rumor regarding a deal for the B3 Bomber, only there is no B3 Bomber.As Conrad works with Ames on his plans, the news of the Presidential sexual misconduct with an underage girl hits the TV news. The President's rial Senator Neal (Craig T. Nelson) goes on TV and demands that the President step down to allow for an impartial investigation. The President is still 17 points ahead of Neal in the opinion polls.Conrad decides to construct a fictional war in Albania, hoping the media will concentrate on this instead. Conrad then ties in the rumor and adds that this is why the B3 bomber is being mobilized.Conrad plants questions in the media briefing regarding the situation in Albania and the B3 bomber being mobilized. The White House Press secretary had no knowledge of either and vehemently denied any such developments, thereby providing more credence to the stories.Brean contacts Hollywood producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) to create the war, complete with a theme song and fake film footage of a photogenic orphan. Conrad convinces Motss that war is show business. Each war in the American past is characterized by a single iconic photo or event. People remember the symbolism but forget the war itself. Conrad argues that why US is at war with Albania is almost immaterial as when the bombs start falling, the reasons are sent to the background. Grace (Suzie Plakson) is Motss' assistant.Motss comes up with the story that Albania has a nuclear bomb and is threatening the US with it. The Albanians have placed the device into a suitcase and moved it to Canada to smuggle it into the US. Johnny Dean (Willie Nelson) is brought in to sing the song while "Fad King" (Denis Leary) and Liz Butsky (Andrea Martin) come up with the lyrics.Tracy Lime (Kirsten Dunst) is hired to play the orphan, running from a terrorist attack, with a kitten in her hands. Tracy is concerned that she will not be allowed to put the gig on her resume even after it goes national. Ames gets her to sign a security clearance form that prohibits her from even talking about it.Tracy is made to run in front of a blue screen and the entire scenery is added digitally, including the village, the flames and the kitten.The hoax is initially successful, with the President quickly gaining ground in the polls appearing afterwards.When the CIA learns of the plot, they send Agent Young (William H. Macy) to confront Brean about the hoax. Brean convinces Young that revealing the deception is against his and the CIA's best interests. But when the CIA - in collusion with the President's rival candidate - reports that the war did happen but is drawing to an end, the media begins to focus back on the President's sexual abuse scandal.To counter this, Motss decides to invent a hero who was left behind enemy lines in Albania. Inspired by the idea that he was "discarded like an old shoe", Brean and Motss have the Pentagon provide the team with a soldier named Schumann (Woody Harrelson) around whom a POW narrative is constructed, complete with T-shirts, patriotic songs, and faux grassroots demonstrations of patriotism and solidarity. As part of the hoax, folk singer Johnny Dean (Willie Nelson) records a song called "Old Shoe", which is pressed onto a 78 RPM record, prematurely aged so that listeners will think it was recorded years earlier and sent to the Library of Congress to be "found". Soon, large numbers of old pairs of shoes began appearing on phone and power lines, signs that the movement is taking hold.The American public gets caught up in the events of a fictional war produced in the basement of the White House with computers and blue screens, actors and scenarios. Soon they even release a mental patient who once served in the military because he has the right last name, "Shoe", to portray a war hero of the conflict. They release him because they have a show song from a nostalgic old tune that contains his name, a war tune now to drum up sympathy and national support for the war effort.When the team goes to retrieve Schumann, they discover he is in fact a criminally insane Army convict. On the way back, their plane crashes on route to Andrews Air Force Base. The team survives and is rescued by a farmer, an illegal alien who is given expedited citizenship for a better story. However, Schumann is killed after he attempts to sexually assault a gas station owner's daughter. Seizing the opportunity, Motss stages an elaborate military funeral for Schumann, claiming that he died from wounds sustained during his rescue.While watching a political talk show, Motss gets frustrated that the media are crediting the president's upsurge in the polls to the bland campaign slogan of "Don't change horses in mid-stream" rather than Motss's hard work. Despite previously claiming he was inspired by the challenge, Motss announces that he wants credit and will reveal his involvement, despite Brean's offer of an ambassadorship and the dire warning that he is "playing with his life". After Motss refuses to back down, Brean reluctantly orders his security staff to kill him.A newscast reports that Motss has died of a heart attack at home, the president was successfully re-elected, and an Albanian terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for a recent bombing, suggesting the fake war is becoming real.
Storyline
- After being caught in a scandalous situation days before the election, the president does not seem to have much of a chance of being re-elected. One of his advisers contacts a top Hollywood producer in order to manufacture a war in Albania that the president can heroically end, all through mass media. — Christy When the president of the United States is about to get caught in a sex scandal 14 days from the election it is time to create a war. Perception and reality, life and death all flow from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. — Lyle Jordan
