Des hommes d’influence France 5 broadcast with Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, Digi Mart USA News: France 5 will broadcast the satirical comedy “Des hommes d’influence” this Friday, November 13, 2026, in the late-evening slot starting at 11:40 p.m. The film is a biting satire of how news is manufactured, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman.
The story begins with a scandal weeks before a presidential election: the President of the United States is accused of sexual assault. To divert public attention, his entourage hires a crisis communications expert, played by De Niro, who is willing to do anything to regain control of the news cycle.
The solution is to fabricate a war, staged as a spectacle with the help of a Hollywood producer played by Hoffman. Patriotic songs, doctored images and invented heroes drive the plot, which follows the mechanics of media manipulation to an absurd extreme.
De Niro plays the cold, methodical spin doctor, while Hoffman portrays an exuberant Hollywood producer excited by the prospect of staging the biggest production of his career. Their on-screen chemistry carries the film’s comedy, which blends open cynicism with sheer enjoyment.
Directed by Barry Levinson and released in 1997, the film was adapted from a screenplay co-written by David Mamet. Titled “Wag the Dog” in its original version, it has become a reference point for political satire, and its release in the late 1990s gave it particular resonance with American news at the time.
The film raises a question that has only grown more pressing in the era of social media: how far can information and collective emotion be manipulated? By showing how a well-crafted fiction can overshadow an inconvenient reality, it warns about the manufacture of consent.
Driven by dark humor and a brisk pace, the film remains as entertaining as it is unsettling. Its late-night broadcast offers a chance to revisit a classic of media satire that the publisher describes as still relevant.
