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Dom Robinson reviews

Wag The Dog

A Hollywood producer. A Washington spin-doctor.
When they get together, they can make you believe anything

Distributed by

Entertainment In Video

Wag The Dog is all about faking it to the public and making them believe anything just to get the desired result at the end of your task. As the start of the film declares :

Why does a dog wag its tail ?
Because a dog is smarter than its tail.
If the tail were smarter, the tail would wag the dog

It is eleven days before the Presidential election and he needs some help to win, especially since he's just been caught doing what he shouldn't with a young girl in the Whitehouse, but if you ever thought that elections were rigged - or helped along in some way - then you'll be very surprised about the situations that this film brings up.

Together spin-doctor Ronnie Brean (Robert De Niro) and Hollywood producer Stan Motss (Dustin Hoffman) concoct a war in Albania striking up which the President is going to clear up just in time for election day and win by a landslide. However, time is called by their opponent when the peace breaks out to calm the "war" before they're ready. It looks like all is lost for Brean and Moss but they find a way of turning the whole mess around by going to quite extroadinary circumstances.

De Niro and Hoffman turn in first-rate performances as always, but while most of the remainder of the cast do a fine job filling in the gaps inbetween, Anne Heche has a nothing-role as a Presidential aide who spends her time following the other two around, repeating things that they say and being an annoying sidekick. Woody Harrelson has a fair bit of fun with a character I won't say much about as it will give part of the plot away, while Craig T. Nelson's role as the opposing Senator goes by uncredited.

David Mamet's script has plenty of clever one-liners but the triumphs come in certain things that are said which makes you wonder just how real the news events are that you see on TV. It's also topical in that the DVD is released during the war in Kosovo which is now resolved - was that real? Some of you reading this may be disgusted at this comment but if you watch the film too, you'll soon come round to my way of thinking.

On the plus side of things, the picture quality is artifact-free - something that not too many DVDs can claim even a year after the format was introduced to the UK and is one of only two DVDs from the first batch of Entertainment In Video releases, the other being Boogie Nights, but something hasn't gone quite right with it. The picture is slightly stretched sideways to the point where it's very obvious. At first I thought there was something wrong with my set-up as if I'd altered the mode of my widescreen TV but it wasn't. If you watch the film on a PC screen via a DVD-ROM drive, you can adjust the picture on the monitor so it looks normal. Alas, this makes no difference to the picture on a TV, but after putting on another tried-and-tested DVD I wasn't getting the same effect so I realised it wasn't me. This only happens when watching the anamorphic version which gives an extra 33% of resolution, so it's not an easy decision to choose the stretched-anamorphic image over the non-anamorphic but geometry-correct one.

I wasn't able to determine the average bitrate as the information is not on this release, but geometry-reservations aside, the compression was handled well and the film is presented in its original widescreen ratio of 1.85:1, not the slightly less-wide 16:9 as quoted on the back cover.

The sound quality is perfect though with crisp and clear dialogue and what it lacks in a speaker-workout that the explosions from an action film would deliver, it makes up with a gorgeous score from Mark Knopfler which sounds like the sort he could write in his sleep but is none-the-less impressive.

The film is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, again a feature only shared by Boogie Nights, from EiV's first batch of releases, which downmixes to Dolby ProLogic if you do not have the requisite DD5.1 equipment.

Extras :

Chapters :

There are 19 chapters to choose from during the 92 minutes of the film which cover each of the major scenes in the film, but a few more wouldn't go amiss. Note that on the chapter selection screen - and index inside the case - it's one out. Chapter 1 is the New Line logo plus the opening statement on how the film got its name, so when the selection allows a choice of 1 to 18, it's actually 2-19. A theatrical trailer is also included in 4:3 pan-and-scan.

Languages & Subtitles :

The language and subtitles are in English only, the former coming in Dolby Digital 5.1. I found to select the subtitles if you're not watching the film from the beginning, you have no choice but to do this and find your place again since putting the DVD in and selecting your favourite scene will result in a text-less picture.

Other extras :

  • Director's commentary: This is a feature-length stereo commentary by director Levinson with Dustin Hoffman giving their insights on the making of the film.
  • Featurette: From Washington To Hollywood: A 25-minute 'making of' about the film including chat from several principal crew members.
  • Biographies and Filmographies: These are given for Hoffman, De Niro, Anne Heche, director Levinson and screenwriter David Mamet, but as you'll find out in a minute William H. Macy's face is shown while Mamet's info scrolls up. Why though?
  • Interviews: These are brief chats with most of the above, except for Mamet whose 'interview' slot is replaced with William H. Macy talking for little more than 30 seconds about his cameo and nothing to do with Mamet, but perhaps they left the caption there as he was sat in the same chair for...
  • Macy About Mamet: Six minutes of comments from one man about another.
  • B-Roll: An interesting selection from the daily rushes (footage shot during the film including different takes on some scenes), lasting for 10 minutes.
  • Production Notes: Pages of information about the background to the film.

    Menu :

    The menu system is very nice indeed. As well as being easy to navigate, each page has selections from the movie soundtrack and some are animated including the main menu and the scene selections.

    On inserting the disc, you see the copyright info, the Entertainment In Video logo and finally the New Line Cinema logo before the menu appears. Clicking on "Play Movie" brings up the New Line Cinema logo again before the film starts.

    Overall, out of Entertainment In Video's first wave of DVD releases, this one is the best of the bunch. It's a very good film albeit with a slow patch during the middle half-hour and the DVD has an anamorphic widescreen transfer, even if it does have one aforementioned problem, as well as all the extras of its American counterpart - something else that most UK DVDs tend to miss out on. 

    FILM	 		: ****
PICTURE QUALITY 	: ****
SOUND QUALITY		: *****
EXTRAS			: *****
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: ****½

    Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.

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