Reviewed by Sam Unsted
Stars Robin Williams, Christopher Walken, Laura Linney, Lewis Black, Jeff Goldblum,
Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Doug Murray, David Nichols, David Ferry | Written by Barry Levinson
UK certification 12 | UK RRP £12.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 110 minutes | Directed by Barry Levinson
Man of the Year regales us with the tale of Tom Dobbs (Williams), a political comic talk-show host akin to Jon Stewart, who decides to run for president in reaction to the disenfranchisement of his core viewership. Due to a voting malfunction, warned in the movie’s first scenes by Linney’s tech-expert working for the polling machine manufacturers, Dobbs wins the election and we are again delivered further speeches and ideas from the liberal dream Levinson wants us to buy into.
He’s persuasive on a visceral, ever-so-slightly dumb level and the scenes of debate and political ideology work on a kind of cynical Sorkin-esque level. The problem is the blatancy of the screenplay in pumping its agenda which is nowhere near as clever or revolutionary as it wants to be or thinks it is. Switch on an episode of The Daily Show or Real Time with Bill Maher from the past, well, ever, and these ideas are being put forward with greater comic ability and prescience than ever achieved here. Watch an episode of The West Wing and the liberal dream is more potently rendered. The sub-plot, with Laura Linney’s character attempting to expose the corporate cover-up of Dobbs’ win, is awful; it’s lunacy to even attempt it. That this then turns into a romantic interlude to the story is embarrassing and seems a time-filling compromise to prevent this from being a television episode.
That’s the key problem with the movie. As a pilot for an achingly liberal follow-up to The West Wing, this might be okay. But rather than concentrate on its original aim to rip apart the American political system it falls into this weird corporate-thriller-romance mode and completely loses its way. The film becomes misguided and lost to its conceits, and completely loses all sight of what it originally set out to do. The final denouement is where the derailment really occurs through. The coda is so utterly, patronisingly awful, falling into all kinds of mawkish and irritating territory, that any entertainment value is eviscerated by the po-faced seriousness of Levinson’s message being stuffed down your throat. Levinson probably comes out the film worst hit. A decent if unspectacular director (his finest film probably remains his first, Diner, though many would argue in favour of Rain Man), he comes totally unstuck here and completely loses control of the story structure and his performers. His script is peppered with ham-fisted politics and tiny jabs that never really hit home because of the unfocused nature of the film. Any satire is diluted by his inability to grasp exactly what kind of movie he’s trying to make, ending as a bizarre amalgam of his own Wag the Dog (a far better political satire than this), The American President and Enemy of the State.
Despite all that, the cast appears to have fun. Williams, so often a byword for former greatness, seems a little tired and bored but delivers some sterling monologues. It’s his political repartee that provides the most interesting parts of the film, alongside Walken gobbling scenery and Black doing his Daily Show rants. Goldblum has fun as a slimy lawyer but it's Linney taking herself deeply seriously who ends up the funniest in the film. She seems to have no idea of her character’s flighty idiocy and plays her like a crusading everywoman. Despite the ridiculousness of the character, Linney seems to think she’s in the new Network, a work of truly great satire, and aims for Oscar. As it is, the film ends up being funny in all the wrong places and for all the wrong reasons and it’s supposed to be a biting comedy. As a whole, it’s confusing and unfocused and sometimes insulting but just remains on the right side of watchable thanks to the over-earnest performances, existing in a highbrow so-bad-its-good space.
EXTRAS None