Man of the Year

BN thought this movie was dumb but I really enjoyed it. However, what killed it for me was the way-too-heavy dose of sexual/crude humor. It stars Robin Williams, playing a comedian, so there you go. (But I think Williams is funniest when he’s doing humor about clean subjects.) The basic plot here is that a political comedian (Tom Dobbs), sort of a Jay Leno or Conan OBrien type, runs for president. Meanwhile there is a new computerized voting system being introduced for the election.

The funniest scene, I thought, was the presidential debate. Dobbs is a nervous wreck and his team of writers and his manager have been desperately trying to get him to turn the humor back on, since lately he’s been strictly serious, talking about The Issues. Once Dobbs gets out there with the 2 other candidates, he just goes off. He is truly improvising, and being funny “from the heart” – about The Issues – like oil dependency and his opponents’ inside connections with the oil industry. I thought that part was brilliant and totally believable.

So maybe the other reason I mostly liked this movie was my background working in software development. The “computer geek” character, Eleanor, was totally perfect. All obsessive, introverted, and sort of a spazz. And it was truly chilling how the C-level executives (yep, I know all the jargon!) efficiently shut down the whistleblower. (The nature of “the bug,” though, was totally not convincing. I pictured my software engineer friends rolling their eyes.)

I won’t say I recommend this, on account of the pervasive gutter element, but parts of it were quite amusing.