Certain hypothetical situations just might be good plot lines for a movie. Take Man of the Year: "What if a comedian like Jon Stewart ran for President of the United States ... and won?" Unfortunately, writer/director Barry Levinson takes this concept and doesn't drive the message -- if any message at all -- home properly. In defense of Levinson though, who's going to take heed to the political insight of a man whose most recent work was the comedy flop Envy?

The film begins with entertainment manager Jack Menken (Christopher Walken) telling a story of the recent past about his client, comedian Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams) decides to run for president. During the initial unfolding of his campaign, Dobbs wants to stick to his guns of honesty and not promote his comedic impulses.

This idea falls short when Dobbs' comedy writer, Eddie Langston (Lewis Black) and then Dobbs himself, sees that the public will only notice him if he's different than the run-of-the-mill candidates. He soon gets caught up in the circus of the election process and makes a mockery of the presidential debate.

This change of heart kicks off a campaigning/comedy montage where Williams does his improv schtick, which comes off like Trivial Pursuit on crack. This seems to provoke a new ideal in the American mindset as they vote him president of the United States.

This is the movie advertised as Robin Williams turning America on end from wacky antics on Pennsylvania Avenue. We quickly find out another narrative is unfolding, when a computer expert Eleanor Green (Laura Linney) is introduced. She finds a glitch in the new electronic voting system built by her employer, and when her bosses ignore this glitch, Green is faced to with pressure to expose the truth of the voter results.

This double narrative twists and turns with unnecessarily long scenes that are unsuccessful in showing the audience a world of cheating big business and politics.

Jeff Goldblum steals a scene where he plays the crafty public relations spokesman for the voting system corporation, scaring Green out of making the truth public. He reminds her -- and for all intents and purposes the audience -- that "the illusion of legitimacy is more comforting than legitimacy itself."

I agree that there's a grain of truth in this statement, but in the context of this movie, that statement fails to hold any water. Levinson tries hard to present these characters that question authority at a high level and, in numerous instances, attempts to "shake things up." However, Levinson's approach to script writing and filmmaking plays by all the rules in the book.

Even the inclusion of hothead Lewis Black in the cast plays by the rules. He has no place in this movie. Every scene in which we encounter Black he delivers three or four lines from his stand-up routine. The rest of the actors will then continue the conversation as if he said nothing. I love his comedy and his work on the Daily Show, but I feel the only reason he was put in this movie was as a cheap gag for an audience to relate to someone who can "shake things up."

The film as a whole comes off as an elaborate and unnecessary way to get the characters of Green and Dobbs to meet and fall in love so the political commentary fails to fasten itself as legitimate. The only thing that really hits home is when Dobbs appears on Saturday Night Live's skit "Weekend Update" and makes the comment, "I've always played the jester, and the jester doesn't rule the kingdom. He makes fun of the king."

In the end I feel this isn't a failed opportunity of a movie, but rather a hypothetical situation too far-fetched to ever become a reality. Dobbs' comment is very telling of reality because -- as Jon Stewart has said time and time again -- he has no place in politics, because as soon as he becomes a part of the system, he can't criticize it with any legitimacy. GRADE: C-