By Ronald Wilkinson Oct 11, 2006, 1:16 GMT
Barry Levinson has a few successes to fall back on, including the enjoyable political send-up ‘Wag the Dog’ with Dustin Hoffman and one of Robin Williams’ finest moments, ‘Good Morning Vietnam.’ So he will have a safety net of sorts when he suffers the slings and arrows of viewers everywhere after they are subjected to ninety minutes of this stinker of the silver screen.
Robin Williams plays a professional comic who runs for president, and we get a few great routines. But whether it’s because his stand-up is so good, or because, by comparison, the rest of the lines in the film are so bad, this might be the time for writer/director Levinson to go back to Vietnam to look for further inspiration.
The story about the clown making absurdity pay in big-time politics could possibly have worked a la 'Bullworth' or “Putney Swope’ if the plot didn’t take a John Grisham turn about halfway to the finish line. Williams plays a drafted presidential candidate who wins, unbeknownst to him, due to a flaw in a new computer voting system.
Hail the Conquering Hero...
Laura Linney, a smart cookie with a heart of gold, finds the problem and from that point on is the framed nerd who is both too smart and too dumb to be believed. She and then president-elect Williams try to stir up a little love interest while she runs from Jeff Goldblum and TV actor Rick Roberts.
There is some potentially funny stuff here but writer Levinson loses track of the story line and director Levinson loses track of the actors. And the audience loses track of why they came.
They came because of Oscar winners Williams and Christopher Walken and Oscar nominees Linney and the potentially hilarious Jeff Goldblum. But in putting all this talent together in the same pot and coming up with pork and beans Levinson perpetrates absolute inverse alchemy---like mixing silver and gold and coming up with oatmeal.
Linney and Williams supposedly fall in love as Linney is struggling to convey her terrible secret but both look like they are more worried about catching the 5:15 home than in uncovering a lethal scandal that will rock the western world. When she tries to convey the simple truth to Williams, who is totally attentive and supportive even though she lied her way in as a fake FBI agent, the words dribble from her mouth like a school child explaining how the dog ate her homework.
When the corporate henchmen sneak into Linney’s boudoir and inject her with a cocktail of drugs including methedrine, barbiturates, cocaine, heroine, crack, diet pills, opium and palm wine, and she wakes up the next morning with a mysterious hole in her arm the size of a roofing nail, she can’t figure it out. All she knows is she is really cranky and some mysterious plot is afoot.
The only mystery is that any audience could find this either thrilling or entertaining.
The lines and subsequent impact of American Comedy Award Funniest Male Stand-Up Comic (2001) Lewis Black are so weak this viewer absolutely forgot he was there. And this was after seeing him on stage four weeks previous. He is absolutely not the same man in this film as he is on stage.
Maybe Levinson should have let him write his own lines. Or maybe he was intentionally dumbed down, as were all the other characters, to give Williams the spotlight. If that was the intent, Williams definitely got the spotlight. But what good is 100% of nothing?
Robin Williams’s worshippers will see this film regardless of this or any other review. But that is the only reason to see it. If there was a TiVo program that could allow us to filter out all of the rest of the movie and leave only Williams’ stand-up, this show would be a hit at the net 15 minutes that would remain.
As it is, you have to see it all.
Opens wide USA October 1. MPAA: Rated PG-13 for language including some crude sexual references, drug related material, and brief violence.
Copyright 2006 by Monsters and Critics
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