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Politically Incorrect

"Elections are important, okay? I'd rather not treat the whole political process like a spectacle to be laughed at. There should be a level of respect to it."
"What?! I don't know how they do politics in your old Fisher-Price country, but here in America this freak show is how our politicians make up for the next four years of f---ing us in the ass."
--Something Positive

You don't have to look far to see that people aren't exactly thrilled with the political process. We're fed up with the two-party system and how the only platform seems to be "We're not as bad as the Democrats/Republicans!" (depending on who is talking). We're fed up with how nothing we do really seems to change things. We're fed up with hearing about political scandals and watching the politicians try to blame everything and everyone else for their shortcomings.

We want to see somebody who recognizes the flaws and hypocrisy in the system and isn't going to be afraid to acknowledge them. We want to see somebody who means what they say, who really wants to change things. We want to see somebody who isn't controlled by lobbyists. Or, failing that, we certainly wouldn't mind a movie about such a candidate.

They sure make the crazies cute these days.

Unfortunately, Man of the Year isn't about that, no matter what the trailers would have you believe. What it's really about is what happens when a candidate wins the wrong way. Maybe not the best man for the job, but probably the only one who sees it as a chance to make a difference and not just a power play.

It's one of those movies where I can see what they're trying to do, but it just wasn't executed well. It's not as much of a wreck as, say, American Dreamz, the unfunny piece of garbage that that was, but Man of the Year had a lot more potential that it didn't live up to.

As you've no doubt gathered from the trailers, Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams) is a Jon-Stewart-esque fake news host who runs for president on a grass roots campaign and, much to his and everyone else's surprise, wins.

What the trailers don't show you is that Eleanor Green (Laura Linney) is a computer tech at Delacroy, the firm that developed the computer voting system for the election, and she found an error in the system. It's too close to the election to do anything about the error, but her desire to get the truth off her chest becomes a liability for the boatloads of money Delacroy stands to make for its system.

So, instead of being a sharp satire of the political system, you get a movie that's part comedy, part drama, part political thriller, and part romance (because you can't have a single man and a single woman in a movie without having them fall for each other).

Checkmate?

It starts out well enough. The first part of the movie is good and funny, especially when Tom gets on the debate and really lets loose. Personally I was hoping for more from the campaign trail, maybe even a couple of television ads or something. But a scant thirty minutes in, Dobbs "wins" the election and we're off to the the political thriller/romance part of the movie.

Sadly, the middle is where it lags, when it morphs into a political thriller/ romance and we waste a good 40-50 minutes because Eleanor can't get up the courage to tell Tom the truth about the election results. And for some reason I can't figure out, he finds her neurotic, frightened-chihuahua demeanor endearing. (What also blows my mind is how little they gave to Lewis Black, a very funny man when he's given a chance to rant and run with it.)

The comedy picks up again at the end of the movie, enough so that it partly redeems what's come before. That's probably why people walked out saying, "Yeah, I liked it," but not "I loved it!"

Admittedly, if you don't enjoy Robin Williams's mile-a-minute schtick, you're not even going to find the funny parts funny, but I imagine if you don't enjoy Robin Williams you're not going to see this anyway. He gets some good jokes in, but I'm a fan and there were times even I thought he was a little grating.

Sorry. I farted.

Because of how uneven it is, Man of the Year is a merely a good movie when it could've been a great one. There's a sort of release to be found in making fun of the process, when it's otherwise just so much frustrating rhetoric that people stop caring. They should've focused more on the comedy and less on the drama. Then maybe this could've reached its full potential.

Michelle Pierce is a staff writer for the newspaper The Buzz. She has learned that Battlestar Galactica is truly an awesome show and must be Tivo'd religiously. Then again, so should Project Runway.

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