I thought Man of the Year was an okay film. Its heart was in the right place but had nagging issues that kept losing my attention. First and foremost, the cast is awesome. Just about everyone cast is a well known star and each play their roles well. In specific, Laura Linney shines playing the full gamut of emotional positions in believable realism. The story is clever enough to maintain attention, and the camera work is pretty good. So what's the problem? I'm not sure but I think it's the pacing. The beginning of the film moves pretty fast getting Robin Williams into Presidency, and then it slows down to a grueling crawl of slow plot points and me nearly screaming at Laura Linney's character to reveal her key information to get things moving again, which doesn't happen for quite awhile. During these moments Robin Williams picks up the ball with jokes and gags but it gets old after so many scenes of nothing substantial happening. More time could've been spent on digging into the voting machines plotline which is only peppered into a few scenes to break up the monotony. I did go into this movie at a rough time in 2022 but the politics were kept to more of a background fluff than as a key part of the storyline which was a relief. I feel like this movie could've used a few more plot points than it ultimately had and that would've helped with the pacing issue, but other than that it's not a bad popcorn flick. There are fun moments to be had in it and in the end it's just a straightforward story with moments of romance, suspense, humor, and drama sprinkled in.
