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Trailer for "Man of the Year"

Settling in to watch Man of the Year, which from its advertising appears to be a comedy starring Robin Williams as a Jon Stewart-ish talk show host who runs for president, my first clue that things were not going to be as I assumed came in the opening credit for Dick Pope as director of cinematography.

A master of filming at night and in shadows, Pope has made a career for himself as the guy you hire when you have a grim, serious tale to tell. He has worked a lot with Mike Leigh, for whom he shot the mesmerizingly gritty Naked. If you’ve seen the current The Illusionist, you’ll be familiar with his striking work. (And if memory serves, he was the original photographer on Buffalo 66 until he had a disagreement with Vincent Gallo.)

So when you tell me that this guy has been hired to photograph a Robin Williams comedy, I think, what’s going on here? And sure enough, Man of the Year turns out not to be a comedy at all.

I’m not saying that it’s not funny. That wouldn’t be surprising—what was the last Robin Williams comedy that was funny? Those of his fans who disagree will probably be pleased to know that the movie is sprinkled with liberal amounts of what sounds like material from his live performances.

But contrary to the way the film is being marketed, it is not a comedy. Problem is, it isn’t a whole lot of anything else either.

Here’s the premise. Hoping to use his TV celebrity as a platform to prod the major candidates into actual discussions of relevant issues, Williams’ Tom Dobbs enters the race for president. Everyone—not least of all Dobbs and his crusty manager Jack Menken (Christopher Walken)—is amazed when he wins. Everyone except Eleanor Green (Laura Linney), programmer at the company that manufactured the computer voting terminals that have just been placed in service throughout the country.

She knows that Dobbs was declared the winner because of a programming glitch. No fraud was involved, but her bosses want to keep a lid on the news because it would ruin them financially. They set about to discredit her while she fights to get the news to Dobbs.

Ignoring if you can the enormous plot hole that exit polls would prevent an election being thrown to this extent, there are a few promising directions this story could have taken. It could have been a conspiratorial thriller showing how the desires of voters have become secondary to the financial conveniences of politicians and technocrats. Or, it could have become a satire showing how Washington insiders would be forced to adapt to an administration coming in from completely outside the usual circles.

Given that Man of the Year was written and directed by Barry Levinson, who a decade ago directed the memorable political satire Wag the Dog, these are not unreasonable hopes. But Wag the Dog was written by David Mamet, while Levinson himself wrote MOTY. And for the life of me I can’t figure out what he thought he was up to here.

There’s nothing comical about the story, despite the sprinklings of barbs from Williams (who at the age of 55 has lost the manic energy that animated his youthful work) and Daily Show regular Lewis Black, here relatively restrained. Its ambitions as satire are limited to a scene in which Dobbs makes hay of a televised presidential debate (the film’s funniest moment, though one that could have been much better were both Williams and his material stronger.)

And as a thriller it’s hopeless. Levinson is a veteran filmmaker (Diner, The Natural, Tin Men, Rain Man) who has had a bad patch in recent years. But MOTY is so scattered and pointless that you wonder if he was actually onset (or in the editing room). The villains, led by a badly miscast Jeff Goldblum, are too penny ante to invoke any dread. And Laura Linney’s performance is so bizarre that you can’t help but wonder if parts of the script explaining her behavior were taken out of the final cut. She’s an actress whose presence makes me look forward to seeing a film, but here I felt embarrassed for her.

In a season with no lack of worthless crap on the nation’s movie screens, this is a failure of a different ilk: a substantial disappointment that could—and should—have been something much better.