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Man of the Year
Directed by	Barry Levinson
Produced by	James G. Robinson, Robert N. Fried, Desmon Mason
Written by	Barry Levinson
Starring	Robin Williams Christopher Walken Laura Linney Lewis Black Jeff Goldblum David Alpay
Cinematography	Dick Pope
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	October 13, 2006
Language	English
IMDb profile

Man of the Year is a political comedy movie directed by Barry Levinson and featuring Robin Williams in the lead role. In addition to Williams, the film features Christopher Walken, Laura Linney, Lewis Black and Jeff Goldblum.

In the film, Williams portrays Tom Dobbs, the host of a comedy/political talk show, based loosely on the real-life personas of Jon Stewart and Bill Maher. With an offhand remark, he prompts 4 million people to e-mail their support, then he decides to campaign for President. To nearly everyone's surprise, he is declared winner of the election.

The film premiered on October 13, 2006.

The story opens with Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams), a comedian and host of a satirical talk show who is able to tap into people's frustrations with the sharply divided, special-interest driven political climate. During his warm-up act, an audience member suggests that he run for President. At first, Dobbs laughs off the idea, but following a popular groundswell of support, later announces on the air that he will stand as a candidate. Through his efforts, he gets on the ballot in 13 states and participates in one of the national debates with the Democratic Incumbent President Kellogg and Republican U.S. Senator Mills.

A parallel plot follows Eleanor (played by Laura Linney), who works at a voting machine company called Delacroy. (The many connections between the troubled Delacroy and some accusations against real-world Diebold Election Systems (now Premier Election Solutions) are difficult to miss.) According to a television commercial in the movie, the entire United States will be using Delacroy voting machines for the presidential election. Shortly before the elections, Eleanor notices an error in the voting system, but the head of the company purposefully ignores her warnings. Initially, Dobbs approaches the campaign seriously - perhaps too seriously, to the chagrin of his staff, especially his manager Jack Menken (Christopher Walken). That turns around the night of the presidential debates, where, fed up with the posturing of the other candidates, he shifts back into comedian mode, managing to keep the audience laughing and make serious points simultaneously. From then on, he resumes his showman persona, thoroughly shaking up the political landscape. Dobbs surges in polls after the debates, but remains in a distant third to Kellogg and Mills.

Election Day arrives and polls show Dobbs at 17% with Kellogg and Mills tied in the 40s. Dobbs performs better than expected, although not as well enough to be close to either of the other two major candidates. Early returns show Kellogg beating Mills everywhere. Eleanor says that this is part of the error in the voting systems. Then all of a sudden Dobbs starts winning states. He first wins in Virginia, then North Carolina, and then big states such as California, New York and Texas. He now stands at 146 electoral votes and the News states if he wins the remaining states he is on the ballot in, he will become president. Later results soon after show that Tom Dobbs has won the race for president, beating out Kellogg and Mills. Dobbs is extremely shocked like the rest of the world. While Dobbs and his crew move from shock to celebration, Eleanor remains unconvinced. She considers revealing the computer error to the public, but is attacked in her home (presumably by Delacroy agents) and injected with a cocktail of drugs. Upon going to work, her behavior is erratic in the extreme, and she is hospitalized for drug overdose (and the company uses this as a pretext to fire her). Upon recovering in the hospital, she realizes that very few people would believe her story, but decides that if nothing else, she must tell Dobbs.

Though still suffering from the aftereffects of the drugs in her system, Eleanor eventually makes her way to Tom Dobbs' victory party. There, she unconvincingly impersonates an FBI agent but manages to catch Dobbs' eye, the two dance through the evening, and Dobbs gives her his telephone number. Eleanor cannot bring herself to tell Dobbs that he is not really the president-elect. Later, Dobbs tries to get back in contact with Eleanor by calling Delacroy. This immediately raises the suspicions of the Delacroy leaders, and they redouble their efforts to silence Eleanor. Eleanor calls Dobbs and he whisks her off to a paintball fight, followed by Thanksgiving dinner. At dinner, she finally gets him alone to tell him that the elections were a fraud, then leaves.

Dobbs wrestles with the idea that he should not have been elected as President and finally decides to break Eleanor's news to the public in a major speech. However, Delacroy pre-empts his announcement with one of their own, stating that Eleanor was caught attempting to throw the election for Dobbs, but that her efforts had no impact on the polls. Eleanor becomes increasingly fearful for her safety, a feeling that is soon justified as agents break into the hotel room where she is staying to confiscate her computer, the only evidence she had.

Desperate, Eleanor first flees to a mall, where she is found by a Delacroy agent but escapes. She then drives to find a pay phone so that she can call Dobbs for help. She manages to reach him but is not able to communicate anything before the Delacroy agent's truck crashes into the phone booth; she escapes just before the collision but is still injured and is hospitalized a second time. Dobbs goes to the scene, and though he cannot understand what she is trying to say, he is convinced that she was telling the truth about the election. During the Weekend Update section of the sketch comedy tv show Saturday Night Live, he finally announces to the public that the elections were flawed and that he should not be President-elect.

Dobbs declines to become president, and another election is held and President Kellogg wins another term. Dobbs returns to his career as a talk-show host, but now with Eleanor at his side as his producer and wife. The executives of Delacroy were convicted of fraud. The last seconds of the film shows a mock TIME magazine Person of the Year cover with Dobbs chosen as Person of the Year.

Man of the Year received primarily negative reviews, with the critics' aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes giving a rating of 21%.^[1] It debuted at #3 at the box office its opening weekend, with a theatrical gross of $12,550,000.^[2] Most of the critics noted the abrupt change in tone from comedy to conspiracy film. Many critics rated the entire movie negatively, calling the early humor of the film uninspired and less biting than that of the real-life television comedians Dobbs was modeled after (such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert); others argued that the early political humor of the film was both funny and on-target, but argued that the change in tone to a conspiracy film damaged its effectiveness, and many criticized the love story aspect between Williams and Linney. Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com wrote, "It's a comedy, a political thriller, a love story: Barry Levinson's Man of the Year tries to be all things to all people and fails on every count — a little like the generic, ineffectual politicians it's pretending to excoriate".^[3] James Berardinelli of Reelviews.net felt it "makes telling points and has a lot to say, but it loses its voice along with its consistency around the mid-way point".^[4] Josh Larsen of the Sun Publications line of newspapers asked straight out, "What is it about Robin Williams that he often appears in these wild misfires, pictures that are so full of promise yet so disastrous in execution?"^[5] Frank Lovece of Film Journal International placed the well-regarded Levinson's challenge and failure within a larger context: "If satire is what dies on a Saturday night, then political-satire movies are what die on Fridays. Maybe we're used to the TV topicality of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or Real Time with Bill Maher, whereas movies are months in the making, turning their current events into history. Yet successful satire needn't be topical — witness Network, Election, Dr. Strangelove — because some verities are timeless. Since when, after all, hasn't there been a populist saying, 'Throw the rascals out?'"^[6]

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• In the scene where Robin Williams first catches the news that he's been elected President, the Secret Service agent incorrectly addresses him as "Mr. President." Until the inauguration, Secret Service agents are supposed to address the President-elect as "Mr. President-elect."^{[citation needed]}
• In the film, the national presidential election is managed by Delacroy as a result of an act of Congress. However, in reality, Congress would have no authority to make such an act. According to the United States Constitution, the electors for President in each of the several states are chosen by a method established by the legislature of each particular state. Thus, in order to operate the entire presidential election, Delacroy would have had to convince the legislatures of all fifty states to use their systems.
• In a speech, Robin Williams mentions that a porn star was elected to the Italian Senate. This reference to Ilona Staller is inaccurate: she was actually elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of parliament) back in the eighties.
• Chris Matthews states Dobbs is sitting at 146 Electoral College votes after winning Virginia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Indiana, Florida, New York, Texas and Arizona. However, this would put him at 156 votes. Matthews is counting Arizona (10 votes) because he says Dobbs is on the ballot in only five additional states (one of which proves to be California). Regardless, Dobbs could have mathematically won the election by taking only 13 states.
• The official airport used in the film is "BWI", or Baltimore-Washington International Airport which is 40 miles (1-hour drive) away from Washington, D.C. as opposed to Ronald Reagan National Airport which is 2.7 miles (9 minutes) from the city and the official (along with Washington Dulles International Airport) airport of Washington.

• Head of State (film)
• Stephen Colbert
• Pat Paulsen

• TomDobbs.com Official Movie Site
• Man of the Year at the Internet Movie Database