Dustin Hoffman his seventh Academy Award nomination for his performance in "Wag The Dog" (1997), in a role that allowed Hoffman the chance to work with both Robert De Niro and Denis Leary. The movie is a black comedy film produced and directed by Barry Levinson, who also directed Hoffman in "Rain Man" in 1988. The story takes place a few days before a presidential election, where a Washington, D.C. spin doctor (De Niro) distracts the electorate from a sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood film producer (Hoffman) to construct a fake war with Albania. Hoffman, as a caricature of real life
Dustin Hoffman as earlier ones, had Hoffman take on a dramatically different character than his previous one (as Lenny Bruce). Author James Morrison compares the two roles: "As Lenny Bruce in "Lenny" (1974), Hoffman plays a martyr to the cause of establishment oppression, while in "All the President's Men", he plays a reporter exposing presidential malfeasance." Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" described the film as "a spellbinding detective story". "The strength of the movie", he added, was "the virtually day-to-day record of the way Bernstein and Woodward conducted their investigations." The characters portrayed by Hoffman and Redford shared the rank