The Hollywood Liberal

Robin Williams is back in a new movie in which he plays a TV talk show host who becomes President of The United States in “Man of The Year.” Tom Dobbs (Williams)
Is a TV personality with an emphasis on Politics a la John Stewart, on The Daily Show.
When he gripes about the state of politics in the United States, he declares the he should run for President, which touches off a groundswell of support, and leads to Dobbs actually deciding to run. He declares he will spend no money on commercials, but his support keeps building through the show. Then, in a highly unlikely moment among many highly unlikely moments in the film, Dobbs is allowed into the debate. Of course this would never happen in the real world of 2 party politics, witness the fact that third party candidate Ralph Nader was not allowed to debate Gore, and Bush in 2000.
Dobbs lets it all hang out in the debate, which becomes Robin Williams doing his Robin Williams A.D.D. stick to the hilt. (and, I’m told, using a lot of the same jokes he used back in 2002) If you like Williams you’ll like the movie, especially this scene. Personally having never been a big RW fan, I didn’t find many of the jokes to be very funny.
The movie brings up the important topic of Electronic touch screen voting but gets it all wrong when it tries to get serious after Dobbs wins the election. (Seems it was a mistake, not voter fraud that made the wrong guy win this time) There was a problem with the voting and Eleanor Green (Laura Linney) Knows what it is. Of course her bosses at Diebold, um I mean the company she works for, don’t want anyone to know what that problem is, and tries to get her to keep quiet. The movie then turns into a bad episode of Three’s Company as she repeatedly tries to tell the president elect. Finally Dobbs finds out what is really going on. What will he do about it??? Well you’ll have to go see the movie to find out.
While it is nice that the film brings up what will be a huge issue this election day, and might help people who don’t follow politics to learn about the perils of electronic voting, as far as the comedy is concerned you might as well watch reruns of Mork an Mindy on TV Land.