Robin Williams, Under Control (Review of "Man of the Year"

Time ^ | 10/6/2006 | Richard Schickel

[dave k]

The political satire Man of the Year is watchable, but it might have been so much more.

Robin Williams is a dangerous guy. Or maybe he and the people who make his movies just think he’s a dangerous guy. There is an unwillingness to just let him rear back and spritz for the length of a movie — as if they fear we, in the audience, will grow tired of his gift, often amounting a form of genius, for surrealistic free-association. They are always giving us, as writer-director Barry Levinson does in Man of the Year, tastes and tidbits of Williams in full cry, the while looking for calming cutaways, subplots and diversions that will permit us respite from his mania. All too often this material is sanctimonious and sentimental, humanistic drivel, and doing it Williams often seems shifty, looking for love in all the wrong places.

Levinson, for whom Williams did a memorable turn in Good Morning, Vietnam almost 20 years ago, does not make that mistake in their new film; Williams is no worse than agreeable when he’s not being flat-out funny. In Man of the Year Williams plays a cable show comedian named Tom Dobbs—sort of a Jon Stewart on speed—spouting liberal-minded socio-political criticism. One of his fans proposes that he run for President, and before you know it he’s on the ballot in enough battleground states to pose a threat to the establishment candidates. He devastates them in a televised debate and wins the election.

[Rutles4Ever]

This guy jumped the shark after about the first five seconds of the first episode of "Mork and Mindy".

[Borges]

Dave was supposed to be a satire..wasn't it???

[tobyhill]

Robin Williams will join Sean Penn for stupid actors of the year award.

[BelegStrongbow]

Yep, and they're even out of the old ones. How many more comic strips and old TV shows can they ransack?

Things could get tough in Tinseltown.

[Leroy S. Mort]

As a comedian, he makes a great coach.

[socialismisinsidious]

What is amazing is that Liberals really believe that if everyone would just hear the "truth to power" message, if we would just listen to the liberal socio-polical ideas then we would all be on board (singing kumbaya, no doubt).

I suspect that this movie will be nothing but Liberal talking points and of course the Loony Lib will be the hero. See, it will be a comedy!

[Cecily]

I liked him in "Dead Poets Society" and "Death to Smoochy." "Good Morning, Vietnam" was also good. He can be very funny, or painfully unfunny. It depends on the material, or maybe on a director who knows (or doesn't know) how to get the best performance from him.

[FlingWingFlyer]

IMHO, Williams stopped being funny about halfway through the first season of "Mork and Mindy." I haven't paid any attention to him since then.

[Niteranger68]

Give anyone enough cocaine and they will act like RW. There's nothing worse than someone who "thinks" they're funny.

[Borges]

If anyone would be contributing money to both political parties I would have guessed it would be a schizophrenic like Williams.

[BelegStrongbow]

You're after me arent' you? That wasn't the point and you know it wasn't the point.

And as for 'keeping up', if you mean Jeff would have a tendency to stay on topic more than 15 seconds, well I guess anyone pursuing a thought further than the tip of their lip would be left in the dust by Robin "sixty stupid comments in 16 seconds" Williams.

[sarasota]

And Williams seems unable to control himself, also unfunny.

[sarasota]

I thought he was good in Mrs. Doubtfire.

[dmz]

OK. Fair enough. Humor, like most forms of entertainment, is entirely subjective. Tomato, tomahto.

I think he's a scream, but like a few others have mentioned, the writing for his movies is just uneven.

[Moose4]

Robin Williams was a hell of a lot funnier when he was stoned out of his mind on cocaine. Seriously. I saw an early-1980s HBO special he did, back during the "Mork" days when he was snorting half of South America up his nose. And he was hysterical. Non-stop, stream of consciousness, literally climbing the walls, hysterically funny. But I couldn't watch it for longer than 15-20 minutes at a time or I'd get totally exhausted trying to keep up with him. He does have some talent--not as much as his idol Jonathan Winters, but some. He was like the comedy equivalent of a thrash-metal guitarist that was all about how fast he could hammer out riffs, even if it came out sounding like an off-key drill press.

The problem is, now that he's cleaned up his act, he's not funny anymore. He's got one character and he's been playing the same guy in every smarmy treacly movie he's done in the past fifteen years. And this'll be more of the same thing.

It might get a little bump because it does have Christopher Walken in it, though. Can any movie with Christopher Walken in it truly be all bad?

}:-)4

[wideawake]

That was not clear to me - the speechifying by Dave seemed to be intended quite in earnest by both the character and the screenwriters.

[SoothingDave]

Williams was interesting as the villain in "Insomnia." Or course, the character had zero percent of the "manic zaniness" that Williams usually substitutes for talent.

SD

[dave k]

Fortunately, you were old enough to know better...I was a pre-teen in the late 70's - wasn't Mork and Mindy a spin-off of "Happy Days", right around the time Fonzie 'jumped the shark'?

So, could it be extrapolated that Mork and Mindy (and William's rise to stardom) was a a direct by-product of a really bad idea TV show idea??? Just a weird, cosmic (no pun intended!) thought...

[The Blitherer]

I liked him in "Dead Poets Society" and "Death to Smoochy." "Good Morning, Vietnam" was also good. He can be very funny, or painfully unfunny. It depends on the material, or maybe on a director who knows (or doesn't know) how to get the best performance from him

Death To Smoochie is my favorite of his movies, but that could just be because of Ed Norton. ;-)

"When my brothers and I played cowboys and Indians, I was always the Chinese railroad worker."

[Republicus2001]

Maybe it's just me but I have never gotten RW's genius.

simple - just steal anything Jonathan Winters ever did and be gay