"Man" of the moment

"What would happen if a fake newsman like Jon Stewart decided to run for president?"

This is not the question that the new Robin Williams movie, "Man of the Year," asks the audience. The real question is, "What would happen if Jon Stewart decided to run for president, and then there was a voting scandal and some massive cover-up and a giant conspiracy that Laura Linney was attempting desperately to uncover and mysterious men in black?

And what if there was an awkward romance between Linney and Williams, even though Williams is probably old enough to be her father?"

For someone who has only seen the trailer for this movie and not done any extra checking-up on it, these multiple twists and turns come as a complete surprise. The film was advertised as a comedy, the advertisement using clips mostly from the first half-an-hour of the movie, the portion of the film in which the screenwriters were allowing Williams to run amok with his traditional fast-talking quippy wit.

"Man of the Year" is the story of Tom Dobbs (Williams), a Jon Stewart-like fake-news show host who decides, on a whim, to run for President. The first half-hour focuses on his actual campaign for the office, and the contrast of the loose-lipped Dobbs against the other stiff politicians is often hilarious.

Also in this first half-hour, the audience is introduced to Eleanor Green (Linney), an employee at the Delacroy computer company, the company that is going to be in charge of computerizing the coming Presidential election. Late one night, Eleanor is running some last-minute tests on the system and uncovers a glitch that could, potentially, ruin the election. But when she tells her superiors they blow her off and (in a rather Enron-like fashion) cover up the problem for economic reasons.

It's the introduction of this second plotline that really messes up the movie. If "Man of the Year" had continued to focus on the what-if-a-comic-was-president conundrum, allowing Robin Williams to continue his one-line jokes that have everyone in the audience rolling on the floor, then the film would have stood a good chance. After that first happy half-hour of laughter, the writers really lost track of exactly what kind of movie they were making. You can practically hear them questioning one another behind the set: "Should we turn this into a lighthearted comic romp?" they ask, as Linney and Williams laugh and paintball the Secret Service. "No, I think that we should have a dark, evil conspiracy involving car chases, drugs and corrupted CEOs," they say when Linney dives out of the way of a speeding pickup truck that barrels into the phone booth where she had been standing just seconds before. "How about a romance?" they postulate, watching Linney and Williams participate in an uncomfortable dance sequence.

Williams and Lewis Black, who plays his friend and writer, Eddie Langston, are the two things that go to any lengths to save the film from itself. Williams's fast-paced chatter and Black's traditional loud, emphatic speech work well together and provide a humorous contrast. Linney's acting is difficult to judge — she barely registers, except in one memorable break-down scene in her company's cafeteria.

"Man of the Year" is a film of what-ifs — not only the "What if Jon Stewart…" questions, but "What if the writers could have made up their mind?" and "What if the acting was better?" There are so many of these questions and not enough answers. The movie gets too wrapped up in its search for identity to actually be anything. Romance, comedy, thriller, drama—the movie, if the writers had seen what to cut and what to keep, could have been any of these things. As it is, though, "Man of the Year," simply fails to leave the station.

"Man of the Year" (115 minutes) is rated PG-13 for language, including some crude sexual references, drug related material and brief violence.