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Wag the Dog
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Metascore
73 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 22 Critics What's this?

User Score
7.0 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 7 Ratings

Your Score
10 out of 10
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  • Starring: Anne Heche, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro
  • Summary: Wickedly fictional with historical overtones truer than many care to admit, Wag The Dog examines the blurred lines between politics, the media and show business.  (New Line Productions)

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 16 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 22
  3. Negative: 0 out of 22
  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    100
    The movie is a satire that contains just enough realistic ballast to be teasingly plausible; like "Dr. Strangelove," it makes you laugh, and then it makes you wonder.
  2. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    91
    If the result is often as glib as the targets it's satirizing, it's also driven by a cruelly distilled joy. Wag the Dog is an ode to the thrill of deception, a thrill embodied in Hoffman's inspired performance.
  3. Empire
    Reviewed by: Bob McCabe
    60
    Written in part by David Mamet, Wag The Dog is a lovely idea, with credibility buoyed by its incredible timeliness. But, content with its initial premise, the movie lacks the necessary bite to develop the satire further, to the point where it's difficult to spot whether Washington or Hollywood is the target.

See all 22 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 1 out of 1
  1. MichaelD.
    3
    I watched this in Luxembourg a couple of years ago and some people in the audience were laughing at scenes for reasons unclear to me.. It seems to be an on the whole well regarded movie but I found it predictable, corny, cliched yes I did not like it at all.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes

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