have never seen it. some say that hoffman's character is a hilariously obvious derivative of robert evan's. do those of you who have seen it, agree? if so i have to see this. besides the mamet screenplay, hoffman doing evan's is fucking hilarious at the end of THe Kid Stays in HTe Picture -- id love to see him do a whole character based off of THE KID.
..its been a while sin.ce i last saw this .
i rember in retrospect(does that make sense?) ..that this film is just as good as primary colors...which may be a good thing or a bad thing it all depends on your point of view..as far as the robert evans character..i don't .have an/a clue/idea
It's a great film and the performances are great, especially Hoffman, who did base his character on Evans. I enjoyed the writing as well. It's all very funny.
"Why change horses midstream?"
I remember thinking that it could not have a better ending.
Wag the Dog is so fucking funny...I saw it twice on the big screen and I've seen it a bunch of times on video...
Hoffman is at his best here, I think is the last truly great performance from him.
I don't think it's as funny as Primary Colors, cause they have different approaches. Primary Colors is nicer on it's characters, it has more drama. This is just whacked out stuff. It starts ina very subtle way but gets more and more crazy along the way, and it works, or at least it worked for me.
There are a lot of lines worth remembering ("This is nothing"), and the whole cast is great in it. The Woody Harrelson stuff is really funny.
De Niro is great too, in very moderate and subtle performance that is the perfect balance to the insanity of Hoffman, who was nominated for an oscar for this film competing against no less than Jack Nicholson, Robert Duvall, Peter Fonda and Matt Damon, who was there ruining what would have been a perfect line up if instead of him, they would have nominated Al Pacino for Donnie Brasco...
That year, I thought anyone could win and it would be ok.
For some reason, this movie really bugged me.......I didn't finish it. Maybe it's worthy of another attempt. I think it was the whole ficticious war set up was the kicker for me.
Quote from: freakerdudeMaybe it's worthy of another attempt.
No, it IS worthy :wink:
Saw this again tonight for the second time. Just as good as I remembered it. Can't believe it hasn't got more recognition. Guess it's because it's a really smart, timely film, and people in general don't seem to take to highly to that. I find it so funny that it predicted the Lewinsky scandal AND something like what's going on now with 9/11 and the Iraq situation.
Denis Leary is great in his bit role as Fad King. And Deniro and Hoffman both turn in great roles. I wish they'd do more of this stuff they're capable of.
never really wanted to see this, but now i do..