Like a politician riding the campaign trail, Barry Levinson's Man of the Year talks out of both sides of its mouth by promising one thing but delivering another. Ad materials suggest an irreverent Robin Williams comedy that aims to satirize our electoral process. Once that plot is established, though, Year converts into a low-level political potboiler that's scraped from the sides of John Grisham's circular file.
What's funny about this deceptive bait-and-switch is that Year rests on the shoulders of a character whose primary directive is to slice through the empty rhetoric that's clogging our branches of government. Talk show host Tom Dobbs (Williams) takes Washington bureaucrats to task on a nightly basis – the character is modeled after Daily Show host Jon Stewart. At the urging of his fed-up fan base, Dobbs tosses his hat into the presidential race and hits the campaign trail with his manager (Christopher Walken) and producer (Lewis Black) in tow.
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