Dir. Barry Levinson
Writ. Barry Levinson
Act. Robin Williams, Christopher Walken, Laura Linney, Lewis Black, Jeff Goldblum

Finally, after months of the unfunny comedy, we have a movie that makes me laugh. Of Course, it is none other than Robin Williams who is causing all of the laughter. He re-teams with director Barry Levinson and tries to deliver another Good Morning Vietnam. However, while the comedy is there, the story isn't and we are given the movie Toys instead.

Tom Dobbs, played by Robin Williams (The Night Listener,) is a late nigh TV talk show who is convinced to run for President of the United States by the fans and the Internet up roar that is clamoring for something different than a Republican or a Democrat and the polarization of the country. Eleanor Green, played by Laura Linney (The Exorcism of Emily Rose,) is a computer programmer at Delacor, which is a computer company that received the sole contract from the United States government to computerize the national vote. Eleanor notices that there is a glitch in the system that causes Dobbs to when the Presidency. When she tries to report it to the owner, the company lawyer, Alan Stewart, played by Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park,) tells her to ignore or it or bad things will happen. Convinced that she will not ignore it, Stewart sends a bad man after Eleanor and drugs her up so bad that she has an episode at work and is fired. Convinced that she has to tell someone, she decides to go to Washington DC to hunt down Dobbs and tell him what happened.

This movie was very close to being very good. It had some great character performances and Robin Williams was great, but the story just kills this movie. The reason is that EVERYTHING is way too easy. The election result is too easy, the computer glitch is too easy, Eleanor find Dobbs is too easy, fixing the glitch was too easy, etc., etc. There was no conflict to the conflict of the story. It baseball terms, it was a 3-2 pitch and the batter hits a home run every time. The suspense is built but, after the fifth homerun, the game is boring, so is the movie.

However, the bright spot is that Levinson basically allowed Robin Williams to improve the comedy scenes and big surprise, it was awesome. Jeff Goldblum's scene with Linney was also wonderful, as was Christopher Walken (Click) and Lewis Black(Accepted,) who were a part of Dobbs team. I particularly like Christopher Walken, who played Dobbs manager Jack Menken. It seemed to be a perfect part for him and he is a great actor anyway, so it was easy for him.

I thought Laura Linney was adequate but she seemed to force her sickness in the lunch room at work and her paranoia throughout the entire movie. She wasn't horrible but I thought she could have done better.

The biggest surprise for me was that Levinson and Williams have teamed together to bring us Good Morning Vietnam and this seemed like it could have been another great film. But unlike that movie, Levinson wrote this script and while he has had success in writing (like the movie Sleepers, or ..And Justice For All,) his recent resume has given us the above mentioned Toys, Jimmy Hollywood, and Liberty Heights. Like I said earlier the stories conflict is solved too easily and while I think the story is good, it could have been a whole lot better.

This movie is worth seeing for Robin Williams alone. The character performances are great and it is a good, simple movie. However, since I kind of had Oscar hopes for the movie, the movie is a swing and a miss.

Brian - the Naked Gun