| A brilliant masterpiece of acting, pacing, and style, Wag the Dog is also worthy of a place alongside Dr. Strangelove in a category that might be called the 'Ironic Political War Movie For Its Generation.' Where Strangelove excelled in explicating the absurd and sinister warroom forces that we believed pushed geopolitical chess pieces around the board, Wag the Dog revises the invisible hand machinations for the hypermedia age where there is no appreciable line between politics, entertainment, and belief. Both films are highly mannerist works, with crackerjack dialogue; intimate and often purposefully silly but not condescending portraits of the main players; theater-like settings and vignettes; and high regard for its actors and the audience, black comedies that rip away your ability to sympathize in a typical, Hollywood fashion so that you might look more directly upon the subject matter. Wag the Dog is so good broadly stated that it's worth noting the exceptional performances contained within. Hoffman is simply at the top of his craft, he takes Stanley Motss and creates a unique aesthetic of a Hollywood power player with an almost pathologically Zen-like sense of purpose. DeNiro comes at you much more subtly, a growing sense that he is a far more menacing figure than his shabby hat and bowtie would lead on. Heche more than holds her own, and almost steals the show with her ten-second frustration tirade leveled at Motss. And I'll gloss over the supporting roles, but they are superb, especially Leary's Fab King (loved his Schuburgers!). But it is its ability to condense the past four years of politics since it was released into an hour and a half of film set before it could know of any of these events that makes Wag the Dog the prescient and important satirical work that it is.
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