Man of the Year isn't funny; it's angry. Writer/Director Barry Levinson has seen a system corrupted, if not outright broken, and he's not going to take it anymore. Unfortunately, it's not the kind of anger that stirs people up. Consider this, as Woody Allen once scripted, a devastating letter to the New York Times.

Ads make it out to be a feel-good comedic fantasy about a political comedian winning the Presidential election. Sure, that's a wish fulfillment for those that consider Jon Stewart the sharpest political mind in the country. Though Levinson has built this vehicle around Robin Williams, the film actually intends to be a political thriller/satire that happens to be about funny people, instead of being actually funny.

Even the manic Williams does his own material at half-speed, which doesn't blunt the edge of his observations, but definitely dulls the delivery. Part of that comes from his character Tom Dobbs' initial conviction that if he's going to run for President, he's going to talk seriously about the issues for once.

Though that drives his staff crazy, begging him to cut loose with his cutting wit, none of it really matters. It's all just set-up for the real plot. For the first time, the entire nation will be using the same computerized voting machines, and software programmer Eleanor Green (Laura Linney) has discovered a flaw that consistently gives the election to the wrong candidate.

Naturally, this means that Eleanor's life, or at least her reputation, are in danger. It's too close to the election to admit that the machines don't work correctly. Cue ominous music and a woman on the run, especially once the machines inexplicably elect Tom Dobbs.

To top off the roller coaster tone, Green and Dobbs find themselves attracted to each other, so in between scenes of suspenseful stalking by her former employers, we get gentle romantic comedy. When Robin Williams does gentle romantic comedy, he can't help but be cloying.

And cloying just doesn't work when you've got sinister lawyers (Jeff Goldblum), break-ins, druggings and mysterious "car accidents" that aren't played the slightest bit for laughs. Shamefully, Levinson even puts Dobbs on Saturday Night Live and forces Tina Fey to do an irony-free moral moment. Not only is it one of an endless parade of pundit appearances to add verisimilitude, Fey just doesn't do irony-free.

Throughout the film, Levinson keeps playing against his actors' strong points. He puts Christopher Walken, as Dobbs' manager, in a wheelchair, sharply reducing his quirky physicality. As a plot point, it serves little purpose beyond an opening scene red herring. Though Goldblum can do evil really well, Levinson actually writes the character as little more than misguided. It's a disservice to both the actor and the plot.

Aside from Williams forced into a Jon Stewart suit, the biggest waste of talent is in Lewis Black. One of the best (and funniest) ranters alive, Black plays Dobbs' head writer Eddie Langston, and ends up whining more than releasing comedic vitriol. Levinson uses Black to harp on the movie's themes, but doesn't allow the ideas to be expressed with any wit; it's just repetitive and ham-handed.

Black's presence also triggers an area of unbelievability. In a world that acknowledges The Daily Show, it's difficult to swallow the idea that a writer for a rival program could look and sound like Lewis Black (shot to prominence by his appearances on The Daily Show) and not have someone comment on it.

Then again, all Black and Eddie Langston really have in common is Levinson's anger. It's a righteous anger smothered by a possible fear of being too on the nose. Everything gets softened. The voting machine scandal really is just an accident, not a conspiracy as some believe happened with Diebold's machines in real life. The rival presidential candidates are bland but decent, and despite Dobbs' antipathy for them, we have no reason to think they aren't trying to be good leaders.

So Man of the Year should inspire the same kind of soft anger, at a movie that has a good idea at its core, good talent and good timing but still can't pull itself to its feet.

A talented filmmaker like Barry Levinson should be better at picking which tools he's going to use to make such a personal and important statement. Working with Williams should have knocked this out of the park; Levinson was one of the first directors to figure out how to use Williams correctly in film with Good Morning, Vietnam.

We should be angry at exactly the same things Levinson is, but we should also be angry that we didn't get a film that effectively explained why nor even turned out particularly entertaining.

Rating:

Derek McCaw