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SYNOPSIS:
Robin Williams plays Tom Dobbs, a comedian who made it to
the top by telling it like it is. When he decides to run for
president to unleash his trademark comic rants on the powers
that be, something extraordinary happens - he wins!
MOVIE
REVIEW
Everyone
has hits and misses. Robin Williams was a hit as the voice
of the hilarious Genie in the successful animated feature
Aladdin (1991). Then he had an embarrassing role as a costumed
kid show host in Death To Smoochy (2002).
For director
Barry Levinson, he had hits like the critically-acclaimed
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) and Rain Man (1988). Then with
his latest work, he marks his filmography with a miss.
Williams
stars in this comedy-drama-romance-thriller about a political
talk show host who surprises the nation by winning the presidential
election. Conspiracy theories and scheming plots are then
introduced where the voting system may have been faulty due
to a computer glitch.
This sounds
like an interesting plot, but Levinson, who also wrote the
screenplay, decides to inject too many things into a somewhat
visually-uninteresting movie. Williams’ one-liners are
funny, but get formulaic after a while. The dramatic element
sets itself up nicely momentarily, but becomes predictable
in its third act. The thrilling elements are not the movie’s
strongest point - and let’s not even talk about its
romantic vibes.
The reliable
Laura Linney plays Williams’ situational love interest,
and no thanks to the funnyman’s unserious persona, their
relationship feels distant and disengaging.
But to
be fair, Linney’s performance is noteworthy. Look out
for the scene where she was drugged and suffers a breakdown
in the staff canteen. It had us sit up for a while during
this 115-minute picture.
There
are also sturdy performances from Christopher Walken (Catch
Me If You Can, Wedding Crashers), Jeff Goldblum (Independence
Day, Igby Goes Down) and a fitting scene-stealing Tina Fey
playing herself.
We wouldn’t
be too worried if we were Levinson though. Like we said, everyone
had their hits and misses. Walken wouldn’t want to be
reminded of his role in Gigli (2003), and Goldblum probably
wouldn’t be too proud of his involvement in Holy Man
(1998) too.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
This Code 3 DVD no extra features – not even
a theatrical trailer.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The disc’s visual transfer isn’t anything to shout
about, considering there is nothing very pretty about the
movie in the first place. There are optional English, Spanish,
Portuguese and Thai audio tracks.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by John Li
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