Man of the Year

"Man of the Year" may be the biggest disappointment of the year. It's not funny, it's not entertaining, and it's certainly not worth your time and money.

Robin Williams stars as Tom Dobbs, a comedian who does a John Stewart-type talk show. During one presidential election, Dobbs decides to run for President of the United States. What is initially thought to be a joke becomes a serious matter on the campaign trail as Dobbs is very well received by many around the country.

That's one half of the movie. The other half focuses on a large tech company who has developed an electronic voting system to eliminate any voting fraud issues. A problem develops though when one of the programmers (Laura Linney) discovers a glitch in the program. Rather than come clean with the problem, and eventually lose billions of dollars, the company decides to get rid of the programmer. This part of the movie is in no way a comedy, but much more of a thriller.

This is when the stories collide. After Dobbs wins the election, the programmer is determined to fill him in on the problem and get him to admit to the country that he isn't the true President. After one brief encounter, however, the two become attracted to each other, making it harder for her to tell him the truth. The story becomes even less credible when she does tell him the truth, giving Dobbs no explanation other than "there's a glitch in the program, you're not the president" and he quickly accepts her statement.

Admittedly, the previews looked funny. As is usually the case though, those were the funny parts. There is very little laugh at here. The biggest problem is that the director couldn't seem to decide whether he wanted a political comedy or political thriller, so he blended the two. The end result is a bigger fiasco than an Al Gore presidential bid. Don't give "Man of the Year" a minute of your time. I give it a D.

"Man of the Year" is rated PG-13 with a running time of 115 minutes.