Movie Review: Man of the Year, Starring Robin Williams

For those of you who hoped "Man of the Year" would be the comedy of the year, a great look at what politics would be like if say… JON STEWART ran for President of the United States, think again. It was a good premise with some terrific one liners, but overall the story can be found in the previews.

The premise of the story is centered around a glitch in an electronic voting system that finds Comedian Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams) in the unexpected position of being elected President of the United States despite only being on the ballot in thirteen states.

While Robin's character gets off some great points in the movie, such as "Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often, and for the same reason", a lot of the story is unrealistic and unexpectedly low budget, not to mention cliché.

At the end of the story is a re-election (whose result I will not tell you in case you do decide to drop some of your hard earned money on this stinker). That, my friends is the most unrealistic part of the whole movie. The reality is that the planet's reigning fool…er… emperor (A.K.A "President Bush") first got his job as a result of the fact that the Constitution of the United States has no provisions for a re-election in the case of ballot problems. That's why Florida was not allowed to re-vote in 2000. The G.O.P. was quick to point that out in court, and they were right.

The main REASON they were right was because technically there can be no voter fraud in a presidential election as the President is not TECHNICALLY chosen by the voters. He/She is chosen by the Electoral College. The votes of the Electoral college are hand counted and there is no possibility of error. While so far, in the history of the country, the electors have sided with the population and voted in accordance with the certified election results of their prospective states, they are by no means obligated to do so.

In all honesty, for those of us who knew such things going into the movie, "Man of the Year", making a jump in logic for the sake of quick entertainment took away from what could have been a much improved story line.

I have seen better movies. I have seen worse. In the end, my best grade for "Man of the Year" is a C+. The most frustrating thing in the movie for me is that they boxed Jon Stewart into an awkward corner in case he does ever consider running for President. While the point is made that the Jester is never supposed to be King, even if he mistakes himself for the monarch, We do not live in a monarchy, and sometimes the Jester is the smartest guy in the room.