Movie Summary

With only 11 days left until the presidential re-election vote, a scandal unfolds in the White House while the President himself if out of the country. The President is accused of fondling a little girl while she was touring the White House. Robert DeNiro plays, Public Relations expert Conrad Brean who comes up with the idea to create a fictional war to distract the American public away from the scandal. Dustin Hoffman plays the film producer Stanley Motts who has never been publically recognized for his works, to film a girl running and saving a kitty from the war in her fake community in Albania. Brean gives this war “footage” to journalists who play it on the news. The CIA publically denies the war. To make their story even more real and combat the CIA’s denial, Motts invents a hero. Woody Harrelson plays Schumann, a soldier who has been in a military prison for 12 years. It would have been perfect if not for the fact that he needed medication to keep him sane and to prevent his habitual raping of women. Schumann runs out of medication and tries to rape a woman, whose husband shoots him with his rifle as he is about the act.

Because of this event, Motts and Brean have to come up with a story about the tragic death of an American hero. The real military prisoner is given an American hero burial, the public mourns him. The egotistical film producer wants all the credit for the show. Days later, Brean, still doing his best to play shows for the public through his relationship with the media, leaks to the news that Motts unexpectedly died of a massive heart attack at his home. This effectively covers the lie he created about the war with Albania. (IMDB97)