Wag the Dog
1997
**½
Director: Barry Levinson
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Anne Heche, Denis Leary, Willie Nelson
A perfectly timed political satire about a Bill Clintonesque US president who starts a war to take attention away from his sex scandal. The film offers some poignant bits, but it's too much in love with its own cleverness. Hilary Henkin and David Mamet scripted from Larry Beinhart's novel American Hero.
