Wag The Dog
The movie starts with the President hit with the claim he had sexual relations with a firefly girl during a tour of the white house, and all this happens two weeks before the election. I’m not sure if this movie was actually based upon the Lewinsky scandal that our current president is facing, but it seems this movie came at the right time. The story is similar, as far as the sex charges, and a war to cover it up. Clinton did declare attacks on Iraq, which was after this movie was released.
I’m not saying that the movie gave Clinton the idea of attacking Iraq or if it was actually needed.
This movie made me think allot, about how things really work in the government. The whole movie is how they are trying to take the publics mind off the sex charges to keep the president the favorite for the upcoming election. The main characters were Conrad Bream, who’s main objective was to “Change the story”, it was his idea to fake a war with Albania. They kept asking “Why Albania?”, Conrad’s reply was “No one in the USA knows about Albania”.
Conrad along with Winifred, a presidents advisor, decide to use a famous Hollywood producer to help create the illusion of war, so he asks Stanley Motss. Stanley is sketchy about it at first or seems to be at least. He mentions that he has never received an Academy Award but he has produced it. Conrad offers him as many awards as he wants to help him.
Stanley agrees and begins planning the war, step, by step.He calls in a few people to help him. I can’t remember their names in the movie, but he used Dennis Leary, and Willie Nelson throughout the film. Leary played an advisor of sorts to Stanley and Nelson was used to help make a “theme” for the war.
They plan things out and have many people help along the way. The first thing they did was film a fake scene of a girl fleeing for her life in Albania. It was then released to the media and filled the news. From there on out they planned and plotted every move to help keep the public worried about the “war” and not the sex charges.
Near the end of the movie the CIA intercepts what is going on and takes Conrad and Winifred into custody and begin asking questions. The CIA tells them that they have been tracking what is going on in Albania and nothing at all is going on there. Conrad uses his sly skills and talks his way out of the whole situation. The CIA releases the information to the public and causes an obstacle for Conrad and Winifred. Once again they turn to Stanley to help. He makes up a “hero” named Shoeman, who was supposedly left behind after the war.
They have Nelson write a song about it and claim it is an old folk song from the 1930’s called “Old Shoe”and it soon becomes the “theme” for Shoeman. America is caught up in the new found information. Then they had to present Shoeman to the public.
They ended up using a convict and when they were flying him back for a news conference the plane went down in a field. Things happened and the convict was shot by a farmer, for messing with his daughter.
Once again they were faced with an obstacle.
The only thing to do, was to hype up the funeral for “Shoeman”. It worked perfectly, they all pulled it off, and got away with it.
Then Stanley wants to make a movie out of this story. Conrad tells him he can’t even if it’s an false version.
Stanley gets upset and tells Conrad it’s the best work he has ever done. He was going to make it into a movie. Conrad asked him if that’s what he really wanted to do. Stanley said yes. Conrad could not let that happen, so he had the secret service solve the problem.
The next part shows a headline about Stanley‘s death from a heart attack and a huge funeral was arranged.
Basically, this movie made me think allot cause it could all be real, and could be happening right now. We will never know because the government wouldn’t want us to. It shows how much power people have and what can be done with it. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the Iraq bombings were slightly prompted by the Lewinsky charges.
Clinton has taken allot of heat in the past year or so, and I’m sure there is allot of things he would do just to get rid of this for a while. One thing I noticed that was neat is that you never saw the president’s face in the movie, leaving it open to your imagination. I fell asleep watching this movie on the plane ride to Seattle and I don’t remember any of it, but I’m glad I ended up seeing it eventually. I would recommend this movie to anyone 16 or older. It makes you think about things, and that’s what a good movie is supposed to do in my eyes.
