Wag the Dog is a 1997 American political satire black comedy film produced and directed by Barry Levinson and starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. The film centers on a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer who fabricate a war in Albania to distract voters from a presidential sex scandal. The screenplay by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet was loosely adapted from Larry Beinhart s 1993 novel, American Hero.

Wag the Dog was released one month before the outbreak of the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal and the subsequent bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan by the Clinton administration in August 1998, which prompted the media to draw comparisons between the film and reality. The comparison was also made in December 1998 when the administration initiated a bombing campaign of Iraq during Clinton s impeachment trial over the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal. It was made again in the spring of 1999 when the administration intervened in the Kosovo War and initiated a bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, which coincidentally bordered Albania and contained ethnic Albanians. The film grossed $64.3 million on a $15 million budget and was well received by critics, who praised the direction, performances, themes, and humor. Hoffman received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance and screenwriters David Mamet and Hilary Henkin were both nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Plot

The president is caught making advances on an underage girl inside the Oval Office, less than two weeks before the election. Conrad Brean, a top spin doctor, is brought in by presidential aide Winifred Ames to take the public s attention away from the scandal. He decides to construct a fictional war in Albania, hoping the media will concentrate on this instead. Brean contacts Hollywood producer Stanley Motss to create the war, complete with a theme song and fake film footage of a fleeing orphan to arouse sympathy. The hoax is initially successful, with the president quickly gaining ground in the polls.

When the CIA learns of the plot, they send Agent Young 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 has ended, the media begins to focus back on the president s sexual abuse scandal. To counter this, Motss invents 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 ask the Pentagon to provide a special forces soldier with a matching name (a sergeant named Schumann is identified) around whom a POW narrative can be constructed. As part of the hoax, folk singer Johnny Dean 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, and a grassroots movement takes hold.

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 en 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 rape 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 to Motss s hard work. Motss states 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 change his mind, 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.

Cast

• Robert De Niro as Conrad Brean
• Dustin Hoffman as Stanley Motss
• Anne Heche as Winifred Ames
• Denis Leary as Fad King
• Willie Nelson as Johnny Dean
• Andrea Martin as Liz Butsky
• Kirsten Dunst as Tracy Lime
• William H. Macy as CIA Agent Charles Young
• Craig T. Nelson as Senator Neal
• George Gaynes as Senator Cole
• John Michael Higgins as John Levy
• Sean Masterson as Bob Richardson
• Suzie Plakson as Grace
• Woody Harrelson as Sergeant William Schumann
• Suzanne Cryer as Amy Cain
• James Belushi as Himself
• Shirley Prestia as Herself
• Roebuck Pops Staples as Himself
• Merle Haggard as Himself

Production

Title

The title of the film comes from the idiomatic English-language expression the tail wagging the dog , which is referenced at the beginning of the film by a caption that reads:

Why does the dog wag its tail? Because a dog is smarter than its tail. If the tail were smarter, it would wag the dog.

Motss and Evans

Hoffman s character, Stanley Motss, is said to have been based directly upon famed producer Robert Evans. Similarities have been noted between the character and Evans work habits, mannerisms, quirks, clothing style, hairstyle, and large, square-framed eyeglasses; in fact, the real Evans is said to have joked, I m magnificent in this film. Hoffman has never discussed any inspiration Evans may have provided for the role, and claims on the commentary track for the film s DVD release that much of Motss characterization was based on Hoffman s father, Harry Hoffman, a former prop manager for Columbia Pictures.

Writing credits

The award of writing credits on the film became controversial at the time, due to objections by Barry Levinson. After Levinson became attached as director, David Mamet was hired to rewrite Hilary Henkin s screenplay, which was loosely adapted from Larry Beinhart s novel American Hero.

Given the close relationship between Levinson and Mamet, New Line Cinema asked that Mamet be given sole credit for the screenplay. However, the Writers Guild of America intervened on Henkin s behalf to ensure that Henkin received first-position shared screenplay credit, finding that—as the original screenwriter—Henkin had created the screenplay s structure as well as much of the screen story and dialogue.

Levinson thereafter threatened to (but did not) quit the Guild, claiming that Mamet had written all of the dialogue as well as creating the characters of Motss and Schumann, and had originated most of the scenes set in Hollywood and all of the scenes set in Nashville. Levinson attributed the numerous similarities between Henkin s original version and the eventual shooting script to Henkin and Mamet working from the same novel, but the WGA disagreed in its credit arbitration ruling.

Music

The film featured many songs created for the fictitious campaign waged by the protagonists; these songs include Good Old Shoe , The American Dream , and The Men of the 303 . However, none of these pieces made it onto the soundtrack CD. The CD featured only the title track (by British guitarist/vocalist Mark Knopfler) and seven of Knopfler s instrumentals.

Songs as listed in the film s credits

• Thank Heaven for Little Girls : written by Lerner and Lowe, performed by Maurice Chevalier
• I Guard the Canadian Border : written by Tom Bähler and Willie Nelson, performed by Nelson
• The American Dream : written by Bähler, performed by Bähler
• Good Old Shoe : written by Edgar Winter, performed by Nelson and Pops Staples
• Classical Allegro : written by Marc Ferrari and Nancy Hieronymous
• Courage Mom : written by Merle Haggard and performed by Merle Haggard and the Strangers
• Barracuda : written by Heart, referenced by Woody Harrelson in character
• I Love the Nightlife : written by Alicia Bridges and Susan Hutcheson
• God Bless the Men of the 303 : written by Huey Lewis, performed by Lewis, Scott Mathews, and Johnny Colla
• Wag the Dog : written and performed by Mark Knopfler

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, Wag the Dog has an approval rating of 86% based on 76 reviews, with an average rating of 7.4/10. The site s critical consensus reads, Smart, well-acted, and uncomfortably prescient political satire from director Barry Levinson and an all-star cast. On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating, the film has a score of 73 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating generally favorable reviews .

Roger Ebert awarded the film four out of four stars and wrote in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, The movie is a satire that contains just enough realistic ballast to be teasingly plausible; like Dr. Strangelove, it makes you laugh, and then it makes you wonder. He ranked it as his tenth favorite film of 1997. Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post rated it at number 12 on her list of the best political movies ever made.

Accolades

Award	Category	Nominee(s)	Result	.mw-parser-output .tooltip-dotted{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}Ref.
20/20 Awards	Best Adapted Screenplay	Hilary Henkin and David Mamet	Nominated
	Best Score – Comedy or Musical	Mark Knopfler	Nominated
Academy Awards	Best Actor	Dustin Hoffman	Nominated
	Best Screenplay – Based on Material Previously Produced or Published	Hilary Henkin and David Mamet	Nominated
Artios Awards	Best Casting for Feature Film – Comedy	Ellen Chenoweth and Debra Zane	Nominated
Awards Circuit Community Awards	Best Adapted Screenplay	Hilary Henkin and David Mamet	Nominated
Berlin International Film Festival	Golden Bear	Barry Levinson	Nominated
	Special Jury Prize		Won
British Academy Film Awards	Best Adapted Screenplay	Hilary Henkin and David Mamet	Nominated
Critics Choice Awards	Best Picture		Nominated
Golden Globe Awards	Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy		Nominated
	Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy	Dustin Hoffman	Nominated
	Best Screenplay – Motion Picture	Hilary Henkin and David Mamet	Nominated
National Board of Review Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Anne Heche (also for Donnie Brasco)	Won
National Society of Film Critics Awards	Best Actor	Dustin Hoffman	3rd Place
Online Film & Television Association Awards	Best Comedy/Musical Picture	Danny DeVito, Barry Levinson and Jane Rosenthal	Nominated
	Best Comedy/Musical Actor	Dustin Hoffman	Nominated
	Best Screenplay – Based on Material from Another Medium	Hilary Henkin and David Mamet	Nominated
Political Film Society Awards	Democracy		Nominated
Russian Guild of Film Critics Awards	Best Foreign Actor	Robert De Niro	Nominated
Satellite Awards	Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy	Dustin Hoffman	Nominated
	Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy	Anne Heche	Nominated
Screen Actors Guild Awards	Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role	Dustin Hoffman	Nominated
Turkish Film Critics Association Awards	Best Foreign Film		7th Place
Writers Guild of America Awards	Best Screenplay – Based on Material Previously Produced or Published	Hilary Henkin and David Mamet	Nominated

Home media

Wag the Dog was released VHS on November 3, 1998, and on DVD on November 15, 2005. It is not available on Blu-ray.

Television adaptation

On April 27, 2017, Deadline reported that Barry Levinson, Robert De Niro, and Tom Fontana were developing a television series based on the film for HBO. De Niro s Tribeca Productions was to co-produce along with Levinson and Fontana s company.

Wag the dog term and usage

The political phrase wag the dog is used to indicate that attention is purposely being diverted from something of greater importance to something of lesser importance. The idiom stems from the 1870s. In a local newspaper, The Daily Republican: Calling to mind Lord Dundreary s conundrum, the Baltimore American thinks that for the Cincinnati Convention to control the Democratic party would be the tail wagging the dog .

The phrase, then and now, indicates a backwards situation in which a small and seemingly unimportant entity (the tail) controls a bigger, more important one (the dog). It was again used in the 1960s. The film became a reality the year after it was released, due to the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal. Days after the scandal broke, President Bill Clinton ordered missile strikes against two countries, Afghanistan and Sudan. During his impeachment proceedings, Clinton also bombed Iraq, drawing further wag the dog accusations and with the scandal still on the public s mind in March 1999, his administration launched a bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

Year	1997
ReleaseDate	1998-01-09
RuntimeMins	97
RuntimeStr	1h 37min
Plot	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.
Awards	Nominated for 2 Oscars, 2 wins & 23 nominations total
Directors	Barry Levinson
Writers	Larry Beinhart, Hilary Henkin, David Mamet
Stars	Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Anne Heche
Produced by	Michael De Luca,Robert De Niro,Barry Levinson,Eric McLeod,Claire Rudnick Polstein,Jane Rosenthal,Ezra Swerdlow
Music by	Mark Knopfler
Cinematography by	Robert Richardson
Film Editing by	Stu Linder
Casting By	Ellen Chenoweth,Debra Zane
Production Design by	Wynn Thomas
Art Direction by	Mark Worthington
Set Decoration by	Robert Greenfield
Costume Design by	Rita Ryack
Makeup Department	Hazel Catmull,Kathrine Gordon,Ilona Herman,Mark Landon,Peter Montagna,Elaine L. Offers,Daniel C. Striepeke,Michael White,Melissa Yonkey
Production Management	Blair Daily,Joe Fineman,Carla Fry,Eric McLeod,Bonnie Weis,Laurie Kaye
Second Unit Director or Assistant Director	Ken Arlidge,Amy Sayres,Amy Schmidt,Christopher Swartout
Art Department	Jose M. Arreguin,Peter Bankins,Tim Donelan,Kirk Essiambre,John French,Joe Louis Garcia,Ildefonso Goris,Tammy High,Bill Kauhane Hoyt,Steve Joyal,Diane Kramer,Scott W. Leslie,Alberto Christiano Lombardo,Jeff Markwith,Jim McDermott,Robert McKelvey,Kathy Meherin,Mark Pallatt,Stephen J. Readmond,Shana Sigmond,Frank Simplico,John Slatsky,Billy Spire,Christopher Tandon,Duke Tomasick,Doug Wuitschick,Carl Catanese,Mary Locatell,Byron K. Lovelace,James R. Shumaker,Brent Smith
Sound Department	Mike Boudry,Lindakay Brown,Steve Cantamessa,Tony Eckert,Ben Gold,J.R. Grubbs,Lora Hirschberg,Tim Holland,Tom Johnson,Doc Kane,Scott La Rue,Mary Helen Leasman,Diane Linn,David Lucarelli,Marilyn McCoppen,Frank Pepe Merel,Al Nelson,Susan Popovic,Charleen Richards,Claire Sanfilippo,Michael Silvers,Greg Steele,Gary Thomas,Dennie Thorpe,Tami Treadwell,Jana Vance,Mary Works,David Abrahamsen,Mark Burton,Lawrence L. Commans,Sean England,Steve Romanko,Kent Sparling,David E. Turner
Special Effects by	Greg Dennison,Jim Hanson,Dennis King,Edward T. Reiff Jr.,Dale Riggs,Ray L. Wilkerson,Ronald W. Mathews
Visual Effects by	Mike Sabga,Krystyna Demkowicz
Camera and Electrical Department	Stephen B. Abrams,Halo Amrani,Ken Arlidge,Nick Arnds,Roger Awad,Michael Brennan,Phillip V. Caruso,Barry Clint,Rick Colosimo,John T. Connor,Amy DeMarte,Joseph Dianda,Shawn Ensign,Jamie Franta,David Gamerman,Phil Gries,Chris Leidholdt,Jim Leidholdt,William Leslie,Fredrick W. Marx III,Roger Meilink,Sean Mennie,Dan Moore,Robert W. Morgenroth,Scot A. Nederman-Paul,Scott Patten,Reinhart Rayteam Peschke,Mark Polischeck,Martin Schaer,Robert J. Studenny,Gregor Tavenner,David Terry,Kelly Uchimura,Jeanne Vienne,Kevin A. Barnes,Renan Galindo,Todd Higgins,Jay Holben,Laela Kilbourn,Ilya Lyudmirsky,Alexandre Naufel,Rob Nelson,David Norris,Peter Shultz,Russell Steen,Daryl Studebaker
Casting Department	David Anthony,Brennan Dufresne,Leigh French,Kimberly Rodgers,Terri Taylor
Costume and Wardrobe Department	Nancy McArdle,Marjorie McCown,MJ McGrath,Jose Morales,Maggie Morgan,Marcie Olivi,Hugo Peña,Romeo Pompa,Kelly Porter,Ellen Ryba
Editorial Department	Gilbert Carreras,Blair Daily,Mark Daily,Jason Joseph,Ric Keeley,Bob Shugrue Jr.,Mark W. Smith,Jay Vinitsky,Thomas M. Harrigan,John F. Lyons,Mike Sowa
Location Management	Rhonda Baer,Lee J. Bognar,Mauni P. Caves,Geoff Harding,Tim Hillman,Kimberly Lynn,Barron Miller,Kathleen Beall
Music Department	Chuck Ainlay,Richard Bennett,Roger Blanc,Bob Bowen,Paul Broucek,Jim Cox,Chad Cromwell,Guy Fletcher,Mark Kaufman,Mark Knopfler,Mark Ralston,Dana Sano,Lori Silfen,Joel Sill,Mark Jan Wlodarkiewicz,Glenn Worf
Script and Continuity Department	Julie Pitkanen
Transportation Department	Steve Boyd,Jerry F. Johnson,George Williams Jr.,Greg Bronner,Kenneth A. Owen,Burton L. Warner
Additional Crew	Shelley Barbour,Alison Benson,Robin Chambers,Brett Cody,Eric Damore,Dennis Davidson,Brad Davis,Ted Eccles,Hedi El Kholti,Avy Eschenasy,J.J. Geary,Emily Glatter,Madeleine R. Gubbins,Gabriela Gutentag,Holly Hagy,Lana Hale,Terry Ham,Erik Holmberg,Patrick Jager,Scott Keil,Carlos Kotkin,Gary Kurashige,Nancy Lefkowitz,Adam Leichtman,Dirk Q. Long,Cathy Marshall,Ginny Martino,Scott Maziroff,Wild Bill McCrillis,Mindy Miller,Kevin Milligan,Jaime Oria,Jeffrey Craig Owens,Romano Paoletti,Tony Patterson,Steve Peterson,Kait Pickering,John Polce,Steven Pollock,Paul Prokop,Joshua Ravetch,Robert E. Roddy,John Sanchez,Kas Self,Maria Spaeth,Bryan Thomas,Louise Tolan,William Turchyn III,Raymond Vigil,Harriet Voyt,Steve Watson,Bonnie Weis,Ryan Williams,Susan Ahulii,Peter Albert,Chris Beal,Ronald C. Briggs Jr.,Dale Dye,Freddie Joe Farnsworth,Dave Freed,Georgette Hayden,Steven Kunes,Keith McNulty,Chris Miller,Tom Sellitti,Harland Williams
Thanks	Johnny Rockets
Genres	Comedy, Drama
Companies	Baltimore Pictures, New Line Cinema, Punch Productions
Countries	USA
Languages	English, Albanian
ContentRating	R
ImDbRating	7.1
ImDbRatingVotes	84380
MetacriticRating	73
Keywords	black comedy,satire,scandal,bombs,telephone