"ManoftheYear" Directedby:Barry Levinson Starring: Robin Williams, Laura Linney, Christopher Walken, Lewis Black MPAArating:PG-13 (brief violence, drug and sexual references) Runningtime:116 minutes Bestsuitedfor: bauble- heads Leastsuitedfor:those expecting a comedy; those not expecting a political brain-scrub

There's so much wrong and so much potentially right with

"Man of the Year" that it's hard to know where to begin. The good news about this train wreck of a movie is that, yes, there are survivors, and some of them are even smiling. And although the film's heart might be in the right place, its head is so overloaded with schizophrenic static that it's difficult to even hear a pulse.

"Man of the Year" does prove several points, however.

One: Hollywood doesn't care for the current state of politics, but it's too much the wuss to come right out and say it, or even intimate it on film without a big fat safety net.

Two: Trailers (those 30second comingattraction advertisements) sell movies, even if they don't represent the slightest truth about a film's content.

Three: Cramming too much rhetoric into a film will make it explode.

In "Man of the Year," political TV comic Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams) makes a tongue-in-cheek grab at a U.S. presidential nomination. If anyone remembers droll comic Pat Paulsen's halfearnest campaigns back in 1968 and 1972 (and beyond)-well, it's something like that.

Nobody in Dobbs' entourage (including Christopher Walken and Lewis Black) thinks he has a chance. Even Dobbs himself isn't looking for votes so much as ratings.

Coincidentally, Delacroy, a slick-looking new computerized voting system, is introduced in time for the elections. Turns out, however, there may be a few glitches.

Too late, Delacroy programmer Eleanor Green (Laura Linney) discovers the problem. And Delacroy's stock is skyrocketing. So corporate henchmen attempt to silence the plucky Ms. Green. Killing her might have worked ( la "Silkwood"), but instead they decide to discredit her, injecting her with an amphetamine cocktail that renders her merely incoherent.

The problem is, since Washington is largely run on incoherence, Green manages to alert presidentelect Dobbs. The election was a sham. What comes next is up to him.

If you're expecting a comedy-and weren't we all?- you'll come away disappointed. Robin Williams turns out a few moments of savvy, funny bits playing Tom Dobbs, whose profession is about making those savvy, funny bits.

But built around those moments is an awkward, ominous thriller as Eleanor Green runs for her life and tries to warn the right people.

Perhaps the most hairpullingly annoying part of the film is the fact that when Green finally manages to meet Dobbs, she takes only-oh, about two or three weeks to muster the courage to tell him.

Talk about your cinematic tension builder. Talk about your stupid plot contrivances. As a political thriller, "Man of the Year" neither works nor makes much sense.

In the farcical tradition of films like "Bulworth" and "Wag the Dog," it manages to deflate its own sense of importance and leaves you more or less wondering why it was ever made in the first place.

If you're looking for an acerbic political reality check, skip this one and go find Lewis Black's stand-up "Red, White & Screwed" or Bill Maher's "I'm Swiss." Both performers deliver full-octane, hysterical head-kicks of what "Man of the Year" serves only in fragmented snippets.

And both men seem saner than anyone in Washington-so, hmmm, perhaps "Man of the Year" harbors a small truth after all.

In a nutshell: Despite a slick marketing campaign and Robin Williams' cheeky persona, "Man of the Year" isn't really a comedy. It's a political thriller about a man playing a comic. But what happens to him--and those around him--isn't played for laughs.

Instead, the film unfolds with Barry Levinson's stern, fingerwagging sincerity, a dark metaphor of our current political system. Talk about an underhanded ploy to get your attention. Ouch.