Man of the Year: Review By slysnide

In this forgotten RW flick, Robin Williams plays a satirical comedian who's ran for president, and is now waiting for the results. He makes a point in his comedic act by exposing the corruptions of the Two-Party System, and the trivialities of politics in general.

However, Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams) is not waiting with baited breath on election night with his campaign manager Jack Menken (Christopher Walken) and fellow campaigner Eddie Langston (Lewis Black) since he fully expects to lose over the mediocrity of the whole thing. Meanwhile employee Eleanor Green (Laura Linney) of an automatic voting system called Delacroy worries about a flaw in the system which could unintentionally rig the election in the losers favor. Her bosses ignore her, though more voraciously given that she's uncovered a major 'flaw' in the system.

The rest of the film basically consists of Lewis Black (my favorite standup comic) supplying the laughs while Tom Dobbs takes everything too seriously as Jack Menken is hospitalized on election night. The laughs are further deterred with the inclusion of the chaotic attempts of Eleanor Green to expose the flaw to the world, and reveal the true winner. This is less funny since rather than getting a raving lunatic running about while a comedian politician mocks it, we get a "Lifetime Original Movie" type drama with a woman being attacked by agents of the Delacroy company whom obviously don't want the truth exposed so as not to hurt the special interests their company's presumably associated with. Given that this offbeat plot converges what should've been the main plot about Dobbs into a subplot, then more comedy is lost. And the worst part: Robin Williams doesn't really become funny at all in the film, as the entire moniker that could be associated with "comedian runs for president" is excluded from it.

Even Lewis Black had few scenes to showcase his comedic talents, thus making the MSNBC doc*mentary about George W. Bush's 2000 presidential road trip campaign funnier by far considering the light hearted tone in comparison to the sh*t that followed. (Truly, it is pretty funny seeing Karl Rove nailed by snowballs...if only they were cannonballs).

So in the end, while it wasn't boring, or terrible by any means, it could greatly have been improved upon, as it also takes place over a very short amount of time, making what could've been another lucrative Robin William's comedy that'd be enjoyable into a weird dramedy that's completely misleading in the titles and trailers. So watch this on TV, since while Robin Williams has plenty of funny one liners, he shouldn't have been in this film, as the screenplay isn't entirely at fault, as this could've been a good suspense flick had they recast some roles which instead left too many expectations unfulfilled.