Man of the Year

October 18, 2006

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 115 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Knowing Man of the Year was political in nature and that it was coming out of Hollywood, I expected to be knocked across the face with a hard liberal slap. Turns out it was more of a “politics sucks and it needs to change” slap, and I happen to agree with that message. Too bad the slap wasn’t funnier.

Man of the Year Robin Williams is Bill Maher.. er.. Tom Dobbs, host of a weekly talk show with a strong political message. He’s a liberal and proud of it, but really wants change more than anything else. One day during the audience warm up someone suggested that he run for President, and he mentioned it offhandedly during the show. The email started to flow and he decided to give it a shot.

Obviously he wins or there wouldn’t be much of a movie, but he has a few hiccups along the campaign trail. Typical movie stuff though, he stops being funny and gets boring but eventually gets his mojo back just in the nic of time. There’s a few other setbacks but they aren’t much of a surprise either. The real issue in the movie is that he won the election due to a computer error, finds out about it after the fact and is faced with the decision on what to do. Again, this is pretty obvious stuff.

Where the movie falls down is in the combination of serious subjects and humor. A good comedian like Robin Williams can do this easily in a stand up act, but it’s much harder to pull off in a movie. We’re hit with some typical leftist material (the rich keep getting richer, we need universal health care, companies are evil, etc.) and also get some rather neutral subjects (government is corrupt, lobbyist are ruining the system, electronic voting might be a really bad idea), but the shift between making us laugh and making us think isn’t very smooth. Many times the film stays serious just a tad too long and caused me to look at my watch to see how much longer the sermon would last. When Robin was allowed to be funny though, he was really funny.

I’m a big Robin Williams fan and that makes me want to like this movie more than I did. Take his funny bits and string them together into a segment on Real Time with Bill Maher and I’d give it 5 stars, but I wasn’t that entertained with the rest of the movie. Worth seeing if you’re out and can’t find something else, but otherwise wait for DVD.

Posted by John | Filed Under 3 Stars, Christopher Walken, Comedy, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Linney, Lewis Black, PG-13, Robin Williams, Theatrical