Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (October 1, 2024)
As I write this review, the US will go through major elections in about six weeks. A tale about a presidential campaign, that makes 2006’s Man of the Year a timely production.
Comedian Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams) hosts a political TV talk show where he becomes known for blunt speech. When he idly refers to a desire to run for president, a surprising independent campaign suddenly manifests around him.
Eventually Dobbs pulls off a victory, but not without controversy. It appears a glitch in computerized tabulation existed, and that sends the situation into chaos.
Year became the third and final collaboration between Williams and writer/director Barry Levinson. Back in 1987, they teamed for a big critical and popular hit with Good Morning Vietnam.
However, subsequent reunion flicks proved less successful. 1992’s Toys was a total disaster in all ways, and 2006’s Man of the Year didn’t do much better, as critics lambasted it and audiences avoided it.
And you know what? Both groups were correct, as Year deserved its fate.
When detractors rail against liberal Hollywood’s agenda, they have product like Year in mind. When detractors rail against Hollywood’s crummy attempts to entertain, they have product like Year in mind. Idiotic, insipid and ill-informed, the movie does virtually nothing right.
Let’s start with the absurdly scattered focus. Parts of Year progress like a standard Williams comedy.
Tom regales us with the usual Williams shtick and attempts to make points about the political system. None of these actually amuse, but the movie follows that pattern.
Then we get the side related to Eleanor (Laura Linney), the whistleblower about faulty election systems. These parts attempted to be timely as they took on the hot button issue of paperless voting systems – one that remains a big deal given how the loser of the 2020 election scapegoated those methods.
Rather than seem current, however, Levinson directed these sections in such a way that they felt about 30 years behind the curve. The Eleanor segments come across like part of some forgotten post-Watergate paranoid fantasy.
Mix these two strains together, throw in a lot of Frank Capra, and what do you get? A complete failure of a movie, that’s what.
Honestly, Year often comes across like an improvised experiment more than a real film. Levinson sticks the different elements together in such an awkward way that the elements never coalesce.
Many extraneous scenes pop up along the way. The movie needs many minutes before it remotely coheres into anything that remotely resembles an actual story.
Even then, it can’t quite follow through on its promises. Much of the film acts as an excuse for Williams’ patented shtick, even though his gags have rarely been so tepid and unfunny.
Williams seems stuck on cruise control here, almost like they replaced him with an audio animatronic Williams from Disney. He displays no life as he sleepwalks through the role.
Like Levinson’s dreadful Avalon, this flick subsumes its attempts at entertainment in service of its obvious themes. It becomes a liberal political screed as it assails corporations, politicians, and a slew of other easy targets.
Smug and condescending, Man of the Year pats itself on the back for its daring and topicality. If it managed to offer something 1/10th as clever as it wants to be, that’d be good, but since it becomes moronic and pointless, it fails.
