Weakened by second-half attempts at thriller and romance, this presidential comedy also fails to hit any sharp political notes, resulting in a confused and unsatisfying mess.
Weakened by second-half attempts at thriller and romance, this presidential comedy also fails to hit any sharp political notes, resulting in a confused and unsatisfying mess.
Good Morning, Vietnam duo Barry Levinson and Robin Williams re-team to tell the tale of a quick-witted radio talk-show host whose fanciful bid for the presidency becomes a surprising reality in the one political comedy that truly speaks for the people. When talk show host Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams) makes an offhand comment that he would be a better president than the leader who currently occupies the White House, a grassroots campaign conducted by his legions of fans finds him unexpectedly
ushered into the Oval Office and forced to live up to his promise. Unfortunately for Dobbs, the revelation that his surprise victory was actually the result of a voting computer glitch and not majority vote leaves the outspoken funnyman struggling with the decision to stay the course in the Oval Office or head back behind the microphone where he is truly in his element. Laura Linney, Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, and Lewis Black co-star the satirical comedy scripted and directed by Levinson. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Man of the Year makes telling points and has a lot to say, but it loses its voice along with its consistency around the mid-way point, and that will likely make it an also-ran in the box office race.
It's a comedy, a political thriller, a love story: Barry Levinson's Man of the Year tries to be all things to all people and fails on every count -- a little like the generic, ineffectual politicians it's pretending to excoriate.
A few observations about the hollowness of party politics, plus Robin Williams doing lots of funny shtick as a Jon Stewart-like comic running for president, have been thrown together with low regard for logic or consistent tone.
Man of the Year has some nice ideas and a handful of excellent scenes, but it struggles to find the right tone and is hamstrung by a ridiculous plot point.
Too compromised to be more than a reasonably pleasurable entertainment, as if it is scared about what it is saying about the American political process.
Cynicism or stupidity? It's hard to say which has the run of this idiotic satire in which Robin Williams plays a talk-show host who runs for president on a ticket of cleaning up politics.
It's not a simple genre film, and some will find it complicated to digest for that reason, but if you're up for a bit of intelligent stimulation, this will reward
Man of the Year, the weaker brother of the Wag the Dog and Good Morning Vietnam polital satire family, relies heavily on conceptual humour and Robin Williams' shenanigans to carry the boneless plot through.
Friend and fellow Flixster reviewer, Scott Wilson, asserts that Man of the Year "couldn't decide what kind of movie it was going to be," and I agree, in so much as it does shift tones a lot. It goes from irreverent comedy to political satire to whimsical romance to schizoparanoid thriller, but I find the shifts
suspenseful and entertaining. The usually crass and bombastic Robin Williams is so genteel and streamlined as the television news comedian turned presidential candidate. He's even a bit of a stud when Eleanor Green enters the picture. He and Laura Linney seem to have good chemistry, perhaps by virtue of Linney's not-necessarily-loving but definitely-tension-filled gaze. Her drug-induced breakdown is quite alarming, going from 0 to 60 and back with her different intonations of "I've got it. I've got it! I'VE GOT IT! ... I've got it."
I think this film is based on Al Franken's run for senator, or a hypotehtical scenario where Jon Stewart decides that he's had enough of pointing out bungling and decides to do a little himself. But imagine that character is played by Robin Williams and he actually wins. It's hard to tell if this film was trying to be
a comedy driven by Williams' persona and performance or whether it was supposed to be a drama about corporate election rigging and fraud. It was kind of both and a lot of neither, at times. It's pretty good, but I think it might have been better if it had come down on one side or the other. And if it had been a drama, it should have been devoid of Williams.
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