Man of the Year

[NickL140]

Man of the Year.
Starring: Robin Williams (Good Morning Vietnam, Hook, Mrs. Doubtfire), Christopher Walken (The Rundown, Wedding Crashers), Laura Linney (The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Truman Show) Lewis Black (Daily Show segment: Back in Black), Jeff Goldblum (Independance Day, Jurrasic Park).
Directed by: Barry Levinson (Good Morning Vietnam, Wag the Dog).
Tagline: What if a Comedian Ran for President?..........What if He Won?
Warlords Tagline: What if Robin Williams stopped making really weird movies and made his classic funny ones....... What if this is the best Robin Williams movie in a while?

Election time is coming up here within a few weeks, and political ads are seen everywhere (especially if you live in a highly contested state like say.. OHIO). Every couple years the whole circus begins over again, and we go to the ballots to pick which candidate we want, usually the lesser of 2,3,4 evils, knowing that they are going to spend most of their time making their constituants happy instead of their voters. What if someone, who was already a celebrity, someone who was well liked, came out and said "None of these parties are doing any good for our country" and laid out an election plan that would get him elected.

Well.. that's what this movie is about. Tom Dobbs is a late night comedian (think more Jay Leno than Jon Stewart) who often makes fun of politics, was doing a stand up routine one night for his audience and one lady goes "hey you should run for president" and Tom mentions it to the senator he has on his show later that night. A few weeks pass, and he decides he will run for president.

Sound familiar? Well yes, this kind of movie has been done before, where the 'average person' runs for political office and ends up overcoming the 'evil politicians' to secure votes, one good example of that being the Chris Rock Movie "Head of State". The interesting thing is, they do the whole election campaign and election before the halfway point of the movie. This is where the movie completely changes gears from Light Hearted Comedy to Political Drama/thriller. The first part is him deciding how he's going to run, and how he's going to do speeches (being all business vs doing jokes). He obviously picks jokes in the long run and that portion of the movie is pretty funny, the next portion involves the new voting system and an employee of the company that makes the system finds a bug, and tries to tell the new president elect about it. Meanwhile, the execs of this company don't want this information leaked.. ala.. you get you're political thriller.

Overall, the movie was pretty good. I think the problem most people might have with this movie is they will go in thinking its going to be an all out Comedy (which is how it is marketed) but be suprised when theres a lot less jokes and more plot twists and turns. It still makes for an entertaining movie, and it is nice to see Robin Willaims return to some of his older style of comedy (as opposed to his recent movies). Could have been funnier, story could have been done better too. This movie is worth seeing it at a dollar theater if one is near you, or failing that, a rental, if this is your forte.. otherwise, stick with Mrs Doubtfire.

overall 7.5/10

[NickL140]

Massively late but.. done

[Gdog4evr]

I'd like to note that the computer error that happens in the movie is fucking retarded. Anyone with even the most rudamenty knowledge of computer programming will know that it is a lot easier to do what the program is supposed to do than to make it do what it actually does. It's like trying to spell the word "is" and somehow ending up with the word "Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuaki tanatahu"

EDIT: And yes, that is a real word.