For a while now, there has been a popular trend to create phony Internet trailers for past movies, re-editing the scenes so that they appear to be something completely different. For example, there is a popular fake trailer on line that tries to pass Stephen King's The Shining as a romantic comedy. All they do is rearrange the footage, taking the dialogue in completely different context from what it's supposed to be, set it to Peter Gabriel music, and the effect is pulled off quite amazingly. While watching Man of the Year, I often wondered if whoever was behind that fake trailer was hired by Universal to do the ad campaign for this film. The film's trailer and commercials would lead you to believe it is a light-hearted comedy about a comedian who runs for President and wins. What the ads do not tell you is that everything that surrounds this storyline is a deadly serious political thriller and drama. This uneven tone between laughs and tension prevents the film from reaching its full potential, and leaves the viewer confused over just what kind of movie writer-director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Good Morning Vietnam) was trying to make.

Late night political talk show comic Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams) makes an unexpected independent bid for the Presidency after an audience member speaks up during a taping of his show that he should run for President. He hits the campaign trail, and after giving an impressive and impassioned speech about the problems with the current political system at the National Debate, his popularity rises in the polls. When Election Day comes, he pulls off a surprise victory over both the Republican and Democratic candidates. However, system software analyst Eleanor Green (Laura Linney) does not buy the results. She personally worked on the computer voting system that was used in the election, and knows that there was a faulty glitch. The CEO of the company (Rick Roberts) and his right-hand man (Jeff Goldblum) will do anything to keep her quiet, as if the glitch went public, they would be ruined. With mysterious men constantly in pursuit of her, Eleanor becomes paranoid, uncertain of whom to trust, and only knows that she must let the truth be told.

To call Man of the Year schizophrenic would be an understatement. It's one half Robin Williams improvised comedy routine, and one half The Manchurian Candidate. Needless to say, the two formulas don't mix together, leaving the viewer very confused and let down. Too bad, there's a great movie lurking about Levinson's messy screenplay, and it shows itself from time to time. While Williams' comedy routine is largely hit or miss, the dramatic storyline that surrounds it has a number of good moments that hint at a much better movie. The character of Eleanor is a very interesting and complex character, both in the way she is written and in Linney's performance. She knows she has to do the right thing, and inform both Dobbs and the nation about the glitch, but at the same time, she is conflicted. She thinks Dobbs would be good for the country, as she agrees with his ideals. And the more she gets to know him and actually spend time with him, the more she begins to question whether it would be better to just stay silent and let the public believe a lie. I wish the movie could have spent more time on this angle, as it's very well developed, and the somewhat shaky relationship she develops with Dobbs during the course of the film is sweet and genuine.

But then the movie has to switch gears now and then, and let Williams do his usual manic comedy routine. While some of his jokes are actually funny, they feel like they have no place in this movie, and completely take us out of the drama of the situation at hand. Levinson was able to balance Williams' comedy and the drama of the situation in his earlier film, Good Morning Vietnam, but here he seems a bit less sure. The comedy almost seems to be shoehorned in, as if he didn't know which way he wanted to go with his script and the movie itself. The scenes following Dobbs' campaign team are not quite as interesting as the main conspiracy plot, because they seem less real. The characters that Dobbs surround himself with seem more like frat boy partiers and pranksters rather than a serious campaign crew. It's like they walked in from a completely different movie. Williams gets a couple good scenes with Christopher Walken, who plays his manager, but most of the scenes involving Williams has him playing for the camera and doing his improv. His relationship with Linney's character is interesting, yet ultimately undernourished, as the movie seems to be more interested in having him be funny than in concentrating on the actual plot at hand. Therefore, he often comes across as a distraction than an actual character in the plot. Funny, since the entire plot revolves around him.

Man of the Year is a movie of moments. There are a number of good moments that would be great in a different movie, but just don't gel with the story the filmmakers are trying to tell. Christopher Walken gets some great moments, stand up comic Lewis Black (from TV's The Daily Show and Accepted) gets a couple good lines as Dobbs' head writer, and even Williams gets some good laughs, even if some of his political humor seems awfully dated. (Are people still telling jokes about Bill Clinton's affair?) The dramatic side of the film has even more moments, most of them belonging to Laura Linney. She has a scene in the company cafeteria where she is under the influence of drugs that were forcefully injected into her that is both terrifying and heartbreaking. Equally heartbreaking and jarring is that almost as soon as this scene is over, we're back to Williams joking and mugging to the camera. Later scenes where her character is literally running for her life from mysterious assailants trying to silence her are thrilling and intense. That's what makes Man of the Year so frustrating. You want to love it, but the film's continuous indecision on its own tone holds you back from doing so.

In a year already filled with mis-marketed comedies (The Break Up and Click being the best examples), Man of the Year's ad campaign is so far off the mark you have to wonder what the person who approved it was thinking. Maybe they thought the Robin Williams comedy angle would bring in more people, thus creating a bigger opening weekend. But, when the truth of this film is revealed, I think it will really hurt this film's chances at the box office. Those looking for a laugh will wonder why they're watching a political thriller, and those looking for drama will wonder why they're watching Robin Williams' latest stand up act. This movie deserved a consistent tone, because there's a very good film lying somewhere in the jumbled mess that Levinson has given us. Maybe someone with a clearer vision should have been at the helm. Man of the Year may be somewhat of a failure, but at least it's one that is interesting to watch and has some good ideas. Now if only those ideas could come together, we'd have a movie.

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