Bobby is an Altman-esquire look at a score of people who happened to populate the Ambassador Hotel on the last day of RFK's life. The cast listing reads like a who's who of Hollywood: Martin Sheen, Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, William H. Macy, Christian Slater, Heather Graham, Elijah Wood, Lindsay Lohan, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LeBeouf, etc. etc. The story flits around between all these people: Hopkins plays John Casey, who had been the doorman at the Ambassador for years and had only recently retired; Graham plays a switchboard operator who is having an affair with the married Macy, who in turn is married to Sharon Stone, who plays the hairdresser who takes care of both Lohan (a wedding to Wood) and Moore (a just over-the-hill performer) and so on. There are some subplots with some RFK recruiters (led by Josh Jackson and featuring LeBeouf), one which involves drug dealer Kutcher and an acid trip that's wholly unnecessary; but most of the movie revolves around RFK's planned visit, even though Kennedy is in the film very little (and never as an actor; when he is shown, it's through archive footage). A few times there are obvious body doubles used, but director (and writer) Emilio Estevez wisely never tries to imitate Bobby, instead letting the man speak for himself.
Estevez divulges the intimate details of everyone's lives with both pathos and humor, and yet manages to paint exceedingly skillful portraits of almost everyone in the movie. Laurence Fishburne get two small but strong scenes, one explaining to a fellow kitchen worker why his angry approach will win him no sympathy, and another with a different worker who graciously gives him tickets to see the Dodgers that night. Stone and Moore commiserate over how awful it is to age ungracefully; Nick Cannon skillfully portrays the hope that RFK gave to the black community, and artfully articulates the keen sense of loss. But underneath every story is a sense of foreboding of the awful event that you know will unfold at the end. You know that, despite the trappings of hope and youth and vigor that this will not end well. And yet when it happens, when Sirhan Sirhan fires, it's still an awful moment, even with foreknowledge. Estevez manages to wholly capture the wretched moment and the tragic sense of lost possibility it represents. We obviously will never know what impact on history RFK would have made as president; but Bobby imparts upon us just how much a loss it was that he was killed before he had a chance.
The end, which features a voice-over taken from one of Kennedy's speeches, tends to linger a bit too long, and again, the drug subplot goes nowhere (though it does spawn one of the great lines of cinema: "Planet of the Apes on acid, man, you gotta check it out."). But the rest of the film is sharply done, and is not only a tribute to Kennedy's memory, it's just a really well done film. Estevez obviously reveres RFK, and this film is a stirring tribute to the man and his dream. This was easily the best movie I've seen that came out last year; it's captivating, engrossing, and stays with you long after you've seen it, returning to your consciousness again and again. I couldn't possibly recommend it highly enough; it just came out on DVD, and you'd be doing yourself a disservice not to rent it.
Estevez divulges the intimate details of everyone's lives with both pathos and humor, and yet manages to paint exceedingly skillful portraits of almost everyone in the movie. Laurence Fishburne get two small but strong scenes, one explaining to a fellow kitchen worker why his angry approach will win him no sympathy, and another with a different worker who graciously gives him tickets to see the Dodgers that night. Stone and Moore commiserate over how awful it is to age ungracefully; Nick Cannon skillfully portrays the hope that RFK gave to the black community, and artfully articulates the keen sense of loss. But underneath every story is a sense of foreboding of the awful event that you know will unfold at the end. You know that, despite the trappings of hope and youth and vigor that this will not end well. And yet when it happens, when Sirhan Sirhan fires, it's still an awful moment, even with foreknowledge. Estevez manages to wholly capture the wretched moment and the tragic sense of lost possibility it represents. We obviously will never know what impact on history RFK would have made as president; but Bobby imparts upon us just how much a loss it was that he was killed before he had a chance.
The end, which features a voice-over taken from one of Kennedy's speeches, tends to linger a bit too long, and again, the drug subplot goes nowhere (though it does spawn one of the great lines of cinema: "Planet of the Apes on acid, man, you gotta check it out."). But the rest of the film is sharply done, and is not only a tribute to Kennedy's memory, it's just a really well done film. Estevez obviously reveres RFK, and this film is a stirring tribute to the man and his dream. This was easily the best movie I've seen that came out last year; it's captivating, engrossing, and stays with you long after you've seen it, returning to your consciousness again and again. I couldn't possibly recommend it highly enough; it just came out on DVD, and you'd be doing yourself a disservice not to rent it.