Carolinian

Issue date: 10/17/06 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Oh my pregnant chad! The 2006 elections are still weeks away but a fraud of monumental proportions has already been committed - a fraud of a movie that is. What type of wacky-weed have the marketers of Robin Williams' latest movie, Man of the Year, been smoking?

From the trailer this movie looked like a jarring, witty political comedy. But it's really neither a comedy nor any of those nice descriptive words. This movie is a joke, literally, without any good jokes. Instead of the riotous comedy this had the potential to be, audiences get about 25 minutes of not-too-funny funny material and 90 minutes of political thriller/Manchurian candidate/conspiracy/voting technology glitch junk. The little funny material we do get isn't worth admission, and some of the jokes are so stale they make the term "hanging chad" seem fresh.

During a question-and-answer session, a frustrated young voter asks Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams), host of a late night political talk show, why doesn't he run for president. The question is just meant as a joke, but Dobbs and his manager (Christopher Walken) get to thinking, and pretty soon throw their hands up in the air and say, "What the heck?" Dobbs runs for president, not expecting to have a shot in Hades of winning. But, miraculously, win he does. Or, legitimately, does he?

When I first saw the preview for Man of the Year, I was really looking forward to seeing the film, because it's a brilliant idea. It's a bit scary, I know, but with the growing popularity of political satire comedians like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and the incessantly growing dissatisfaction with the main two parties of our government, is it really that much of a farce to imagine Colbert running for president, and if not winning, actually getting a surprisingly high amount of votes?

The whole political process has grown so fusty; one party gaining control and being so utterly inept that they allow the other party to gain control, until the other party is also so equally, utterly, ubiquitously, inexplicably inept that they hand control right back to the original party on a silver platter. It's like a battle of who can be the worst. It's sickening. I don't think I'd feel very comfortable with Jon Stewart leading a war or directing a massive welfare reform, but hey, at least if nothing else he'd be funny and he'd be interesting. I can't imagine Stewart doing as poor of a job leading the free world as the men who've resided in the White House since I came to be.

But enough political and preachy rambling on my part - Man of the Year simply isn't anything like the marketers portray it to be, nor even close to the awesome movie it has the potential to be. It's a dog. Its humor is the strength of the movie, but again, its humor isn't that funny, drawing only a few laughs. A vast majority of the movie focuses on a computer voting technology glitch, then shifts to a sort of Enron whistle-blower chase and run mode, and then concludes with a sort of do-two-wrongs-make-a-right moral question scenario. The jest parts of the film aren't the best, but the rest of it is just terrible. Dreadful. It's never remotely involving or interesting.

Man of the Year is such a disappointment, and it's a shame, because there are a lot of talented people here. Robin Williams has been funny in so many movies, and has evolved into a serious, serious actor. Director Barry Levinson directed Williams in the awesome Good Morning Vietnam, and has made many winners like Rain Man and Wag the Dog (a great political thriller). But they just lay an egg here, never able to rise above the lackluster material.

Christopher Walken (who with this and Click has now been in two films I've given one star to this year) tries but can't find it, and Laura Linney never looks comfortable or creates chemistry as the president's love interest. It's just an all-around, unarguable, sound electoral defeat. Don't vote for it.