Review of Wag the Dog

I think we might be at the point in this country where a story like this could actually happen. Would anyone doubt it? At a time when real news is hardly distinguishable from fake news, I could imagine the chicanery of someone like Conrad Brean (Robert De Niro) being brought in to spin a story that takes everyone's eye off the ball in order to make a politician look good in any type of scandal. I liked the way De Niro and Dustin Hoffman played off each other in this effective satire. The nonsense and double talk they engaged in felt like it could have been ad libbed while filming, with the story taking shape as it was being made. While the similarity to the Clinton affair is palpable in hindsight, one might also consider the similarity to a certain President who likes to sniff the hair of young girls. With the way the story unfolded, I couldn't help thinking that this movie might have actually served as a template for "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once" in the way the principals continuously changed direction based on developing circumstances in real time. Since this movie was made, it feels like this kind of absurdity is now the norm instead of being an outlier. Only the dogs are bigger and the tail wagging has wider repercussions.