Wag the Dog

"Wag the Dog," A 1997 film directed by Barry Levison and written by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet, is a satire of American politics, media, and war. The film takes place as an unnamed and unseen president up for re-election is caught in a sex scandal with a young girl only fourteen days before election day. As the news of the president's scandal starts to leak, an adviser named Conrad Brean played by Robert DeNiro is brought in to create a diversion in order to save the president's re-election bid. By teaming up with a Hollywood producer (played by Dustin Hoffman), Conrad and his team create a fictional war with Albania. A media campaign is created complete with a theme song and heroic soldier figure, effectively obscurring the president's scandal and ensuring his reelection. Ultimately, Wag the Dog is a disturbingly satirical look at how war is portrayed in the modern media and how it can be manipulated and propagated to a population. The film also has disturbing similarities to both the Clinton impeachment scandal as well as the media coverage of the beginnig of the Iraq war. What makes the film all the more profound is that it was filmed and produced before both of these events, making the film seem not so far-fetched. The satire of the film and its exaggerated nature make it at once humorous, eye-opening, and disturbingly plausible. Overall, Wag the Dog is an essential film for anyone interested in politics and war and how they are presented and skewed in the mainstream media.

Here's a clip from the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-FXkj-r9Mc