DVD Review by David BlackwelL

DETAILS:  116  minutes, two featurettes

VIDEO:  2.35:1 (Anamorphic Widescreen)

AUDIO:  English, french, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital

Subtitles:  English, Spanish, French

STUDIO:  Universal/ Morgan Creek

RELEASE DATE:  2-20-2007

MAN OF THE YEAR is the type of movie that brings a smile to your face. Robin Williams plays Tom Dobbs- a comedian (who hosts a political satire talk show) that decides to run for President and somehow wins due to a glitch in the computer voting booths. Karen Hines plays one of his staff and it makes me wonder if Ken Finkleman could have done MAN OF THE YEAR better. Ken is great with satire or dark comedy when it comes to his series THE NEWSROOM (which Karen Hines was part the cast). Barry Levinson does great here as a writer/director of MAN OF THE YEAR, but it brings me back to what if Ken could have done it better. Yet MAN OF THE YEAR show through Tom Dobbs what is wrong with the USA political system. Levinson nails it. Then you have Jeff Goldbulm part of the company who make the defective computer voting machines. They decide to ignore the problem and will do anything to have it stay buried to keep the company afloat. That brings me to Christopher Walken (as Tom Dobbs' manager) who shines in about any film he is in. The manager (and Dobbs' staff) does have a point that peolpe want to listen to Dobbs when he isn't serious and that is how MAN OF THE YEAR attacks by entertaining you at the same time.

SPECIAL FEATURES: Two featurettes are on the disc.

COMMANDER IN CHEIF is a talking heads/ behind-the-scenes promo fluff while ROBIN WILLIAMS: STAND UP GUY shows some of his improv he did during various takes while shooting MAN OF THE YEAR. I rather had a section of deleted scenes showing the improv that didn't make it into the final film.

FINAL ANALYSIS: MAN OF THE YEAR's satire points out too well how American politics have gone wrong. see it now.

this review is (c)3-2-2007 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission (except for excerpts and a link to the review). Look for additional content at http://enterlinemedia.livejournal.com and send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com