The film revolves around the sexual scandal of an important candidate, and he always tries to keep the citizen’s attention away from that scandal by launching a fictional war with Albania. The task may seem simple when the media focus on it. In order to achieve this, this man tries to hire a Hollywood producer to create a fake war context.
Lazily assembled by director Levinson, it slides into a series of soft, extended skits on engineering a media war, not helped by several badly handled leaps in the story.
Anyone who would be inherently interested in this kind of sendup is unlikely to be surprised by anything in this film -- overall it feels like a trifle, if an entertaining one.
A wicked smart satire on the interlocking worlds of politics and show business, Wag the Dog confirms every awful thought you've ever had about media manipulation and the gullibility of the American public.
