Wag The Dog

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General		Extras
Category	Satire	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - 1.33:1 non-16x9 enhanced, DD 2.0 mono
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	Yes, 2 Dolby Digital Canyon Rush Hour - 1.85:1 non-16x9 enh, DD 2.0 surround
Year Released	1997	Commentary Tracks	Yes, 1 - Barry Levinson (Director) & Dustin Hoffman (Actor)
Running Time	92:58 minutes (not 97 minutes as listed on the packaging)	Other Extras	Menu Audio & Animation Scene Selection Audio & Animation Featurette-On The Set (4:02) Cast & Crew Biographies Cast & Crew Interviews Production Notes Featurette-From Washington... (24:42)
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (27:49)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	4	Director	Barry Levinson
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Dustin Hoffman Robert De Niro Anne Heche Denis Leary Willie Nelson Andrea Martin Kristen Dunst
RRP	$34.95	Music	Mark Knopfler

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	No	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary (Dolby Digital 2.0, 160Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired	Annoying Product Placement	Yes
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The President of the United States of America has been caught with his pants down, being accused of molesting a Firefly girl. This could not have come at a more inopportune moment, with the election only 11 days away. The President calls in Conrad Bream (Robert De Niro), Washington's ultimate spin doctor to get the situation under control. Conrad's solution? Declare war on Albania to divert attention away from the issue. Not a real war, mind you, a fake war, produced by Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman), replete with patriotic anthems and a hero all created by Hollywood trickery.

    Wag The Dog is quite a rarity in Hollywood these days. Almost totally dialogue-driven, and scathing in its portrayal of an increasingly farcical situation, it nonetheless remains uncannily believable.

    I can't say that I overly enjoyed the movie, other than some stand-out moments from Dustin Hoffman, but it certainly gave me food for thought, and I certainly enjoyed it more on the small screen than when I saw it theatrically. I suspect it would play much better in the US.

Video

    It is presented at an aspect ratio of exactly 1.85:1, and is 16x9 enhanced. Subtitles defaulted ON, which was a minor annoyance.

    The transfer is very clear and very sharp throughout. In fact, at times I felt the transfer was too sharp, with the resultant artefacting that this subsequently led to. However, this is a minor complaint. There is a large amount of detail revealed in the transfer at all times. Shadow detail was exemplary, with lots of fine detail visible in the shadows, other than at the times when the cinematography deliberately hid details from the image for artistic effect. This was particularly the case down in the underground bunker, where the cinematography would often show disconnected faces - clearly a deliberate artistic choice, mind you, not a transfer problem. There was no low level noise other than in the deliberately degraded TV sequences.

    The colours are rendered with a very interesting palette - blues and greys predominate, with the occasional splash of red from Anne Heche's jumper thrown in for contrast. The occasional greens of the Whitehouse lawn made for a welcome change of palette. There was some very slight colour bleeding on occasion from Anne Heche's jumper, but nothing to be overly concerned about. There was also a slight amount of chroma noise in some of the deeper blues. Again, nothing to be overly concerned about.

    There were no MPEG artefacts seen. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of a moderate amount of aliasing, with the typical culprits for this being responsible. In the case of this movie, this was often the chrome lines of various cars. The aliasing is more bothersome than it should be, and detracts from what would otherwise be a reference quality transfer. I did not notice any specific film artefacts.

    There are two subtitle tracks on this DVD; English and English For The Hearing Impaired, though the English For The Hearing Impaired subtitles are not flagged as being of any language at all to the DVD player.

    The running time of this movie is incorrectly stated on the packaging as being 97 minutes. It is, in fact 92:58.

    This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change occurring very early during this transfer, at 27:49, between Chapters 8 & 9. It is quite intrusive, with a marked pause in the image during a tracking shot. It is probably all the more noticeable since it is placed so early, and you are not expecting it so soon in the movie.

Audio

    The dialogue was pretty much always audible, clear, and easy to understand other than the odd word here or there. A movie such as this is critically dependent on dialogue intelligibility, and as such, there was some slight room for improvement in this regard.

    There were no audio sync problems with the English 5.1 soundtrack.

    The musical score was provided by Mark Knopfler and is in his unusual, laconic style. It provided an unusual and appropriate accompaniment to the increasingly farcical on-screen actions with its low-key approach. I can't say that Mark Knopfler does much for me as a movie composer, since his soundtracks all seem to sound the same, but this one seems to be the most appropriate sounding one that I have heard to date.

    The surround channels had very limited use indeed, with this soundtrack predominately being mono dialogue in the centre channel. The music was mixed in stereo and had a slight surround presence, and there was one scene in the rain which had rain effects mixed throughout the soundfield, but that was about it for the surround action of this movie. I didn't particularly miss it, as I found that I needed to concentrate on the dialogue throughout this movie, and any extraneous sounds tended to draw my attention away from the dialogue.

    The subwoofer had virtually nothing to do except to support the music on the odd occasion.

Main Menu Animation & Audio

Scene Selection Animation & Audio

Dolby Digital Canyon Trailer

Featurette - On The Set

Cast & Crew Biographies

Cast & Crew Interviews

Audio Commentary - Barry Levinson (Director) & Dustin Hoffman (Actor)

Production Notes

Featurette - From Washington...

Theatrical Trailers - Wag The Dog & Rush Hour

• Full Frame version of the movie
• Essay - The Thin Line Between Truth And Fiction

• Production Notes
• Cast & Crew Interviews (other than the one with William H. Macy)

    The video is of very good quality.

    The audio is of average quality.

    The extras are copious, but of limited value.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna (read my bio)
19th April 2000