Man of the Year

A TV comedian (Robin Williams) decides to run for president and rides to an upset victory on Election Day; meanwhile, a programmer at the company that developed the nationwide computer voting program (Laura Linney) suspects that the election may have been a fluke caused by a glitch in the system. Writer-director Barry Levinson never really resolves his central problem: Is he talking about voter discontent or computer glitches? His movie whipsaws between toothless satire (Williams’ standard free-association shtick) and feverish conspiracy thriller, with sinister villains (Jeff Goldblum and Rick Roberts) who lurk in the shadows but never quite get around to doing evil, while Linney’s character can’t get to the point (if she did, there’d be no movie). It’s half unfunny comedy and half uncompelling drama.