Wag the Dog

Wag the Dog (1997) is Barry Levinson's political satire you can watch online on iFILM. Two weeks before the election, the President is caught in a sex scandal. A fixer named Conrad Brean is rushed in to bury the story.

His fix is pure Hollywood: a fake war with Albania, fought entirely on a soundstage. Brean drags in producer Stanley Motss to make the lie look real, and Dustin Hoffman plays him as a vain showman who just wants someone, anyone, to give him credit for the con. Robert De Niro keeps Brean cool and unreadable while Anne Heche, Woody Harrelson and Denis Leary scramble around the edges. They shoot battle footage, commission patriotic songs, and manufacture a war hero from scratch.

David Mamet wrote the script, and his clipped, circling dialogue does the heavy lifting. The film landed in theaters almost in step with a real White House scandal, which only sharpened its bite. A cynical, very funny look at how media builds reality out of nothing — perfect for anyone who likes their satire sharp and unsentimental. Stream Wag the Dog (1997) online on iFILM.