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Bobby Movie Review
To perfectly recreate a single time, place, or event is what many films try earnestly to accomplish but can never quite achieve. Bobby not only succeeds in capturing all three but does so with heartfelt emotion and possibly the most impressive ensemble cast in the last decade. Whether or not Robert Kennedy was the savior the film portrays him to be, the impact he had on so many lives becomes undeniably apparent through Estevez's tremendous presentation. <
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>22 different characters' lives connect around each other, the Ambassador Hotel, and the tragic events in June of 1968. Heather Graham and Joy Bryant are switchboard operators. Anthony Hopkins is a retired doorman, William H. Macy manages the hotel, and Christian Slater manages the staff. Freddy Rodriguez and Lawrence Fishburne are cooks and servers, Sharon Stone is a hairdresser, Nick Cannon and Joshua Jackson are campaign managers for the future president, and Ashton Kutcher is merely an enlightened guest at the hotel. But no matter their position or class, they are all affected in some way by Robert Kennedy's presence, his campaign, and the idealism he represented. <
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>To say that Bobby has an amazing cast would be quite an understatement. From veteran actors Anthony Hopkins and William H. Macy to popular newcomers Elijah Wood and Freddy Rodriguez, literally every scene is bursting with recognizable talent. Christian Slater, Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Lawrence Fishburne, Lindsay Lohan, Heather Graham, Helen Hunt, Martin Sheen, and even director Emilio Estevez lavishly portray characters affected by Bobby Kennedy's campaign. However Estevez managed to recruit so many notable actors, it certainly paid off as no performance is wasted. Hopkins is spectacular as always as the aging hotel doorman reflecting on the past and Macy, Slater, Graham, Fishburne, and Stone all turn in exceptional performances as members of the various echelons of the hotel business. Nick Cannon and Joshua Jackson are RFK campaign managers who dream of success; Brian Geraghty and Shia LaBeouf dream of something quite different in their acid induced hallucinations. Lohan and Wood are lovers who seek a way out of war, Vargas and Rodriguez yearn for equality, and Macy and Graham seek escape from the monotony of their lives - but all rely on the hope that Kennedy brings with his presidency. While Bobby himself is probably the least developed character (as we only see him from snippets of stock footage at campaign events), the focus is really not on him as a person, but what he meant and symbolized to thousands of Americans during the trying times of the 1960's... <
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>Read the full review at www.moviepulse.net <
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Assassination Hotel
My wife was anxious to see this film (ostensibly about one of the heroes of her young adulthood), which never made it to the Baton Rouge theatres. I'm glad that it didn't because we saved about $20 in the process by watching it through our rental service. For me, the movie played out like that old series "Hotel" with James Brolin as the manager, which existed to showcase the "B"-list actors (in this case "A"-list) playing the various guests of the week. The movie features a bunch of semi-integrated stories about hotel guests and staff in the day leading up to Bobby Kennedy's assassination at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 6, 1968; like a disaster movie with the assassination as the disaster. The actor who played "Bobby" had a bit part at best--essentially a body double available for shooting by a nervous-looking Sirhan Sirhan. (As many shots as he got off (several people were wounded, but not mortally), you'd think that some member of the security detail would have killed him.) <
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>The high-powered cast also includes such notables as Harry Belafonte, Lawrence Fishburne, Sharon Stone, Martin Sheen, Helen Hunt, Christian Slater, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy, Anthony Hopkins, Elijah Wood and Demi Moore. Director Emilio Estevez manages to include a vanity part for himself as Moore's long-suffering husband/manager. <
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>Still, seeing Freddy Rodriguez ("Rico" from "Six Feet Under" as a member) of the kitchen staff was fun (along with a lookback at Don Drysdale's shutout pitching streak of that season). The best parts of the movie were the authentic footage of Kennedy during the presidential campaign (many times shown on TV's in the movie's scenes, at which time we knew we wouldn't see actor "Bobby's" face). All in all, "Bobby" was a big disappointment and far overshadowed by another historical film featuring RFK that I've seen recently, "Thirteen Days" (2000), which I've also reviewed in here. <
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A neglected Emilio Estevez masterpiece
BOBBY is a masterpiece from writer/director/actor Emilio Estevez that gives us the America of 1968. Specifically, it focuses on 24 very different characters staying at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 4, 1968, the day Robert Kenedy was shot after winning the California primary. In a wise decision by Estevez, Kennedy plays himself in film clips as he talks about a government out of touch with its people. A war in Vietnam is making too much money to be stopped, while segregation, women's rights, and poverty exist all across America. For Estevez, Kennedy was clearly our hope for the future, and his murder robbed America of someone who could have been a brilliant President. <
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>The actors, billed alphabetically, are a who's who of young and old, former Brat Packers and MTV stars, veterans and party girls. At the top is William H. Macy as Paul, the owner of the Ambassador Hotel. Sharon Stone (stunning) is Miriam, his aging beautician wife; and Heather Graham is Angela, his switchboard operator lover. Anthony Hopkins is John Casey, the retired hotel doorman who plays chess with his friend Nelson (Harry Belafonte) and recalls famous people who have stayed at the hotel. Laurence Fishburne is Edward Robinson, head chef and baseball lover on a crucial baseball day for Don Drysdale. Christian Slater is Timmons, a racist kitchen manager fired by Paul for not giving black and Hispanic kitchen staff time off to vote. Martin Sheen (Estevez' real-life Dad) and Helen Hunt are Jack and Samantha, celebrating their tenth anniversary at the hotel. Lindsay Lohan as Diane is marrying boyfriend Elisha Wood (as William, not David) without much love to save him from going to Vietnam. Ashton Kutcher is a drug dealer turning two Kennedy campaigners on to LSD. Pretty Mary Elizabeth Winstead steals two scenes as a coffee shop waitress named Susan. Estevez is Tim Fallon, husband to alcoholic lounge singer Demi Moore as Virginia. (The smoking actress unfortunately does a heavy-handed Marlboro red product placement in a beauty shop scene.) And DAWSON'S CREEK's Joshua Jackson is Wade, a Kennedy campaign manager. And so it all goes, with everyone mingling inside the Ambassador very much like Robert Altman's cast in NASHVILLE (1975). And, going further back, the Oscar-winning Best Picture, GRAND HOTEL (1932), which John Casey fondly recalls. <
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>Estevez is an amazingly accomplished filmmaker for someone so young. How old was he in 1968? Yet he captures the political and social landscape in America to perfection in his screenplay and gets stunning performances from such an eclectic cast of pros. He has also worked to perfection with his crew, including composer Mark Isham and whoever arranged the period songs, production designer Patti Podesta, costumer Julie Weiss, cinematographer Michael Barrett, and editor Richard Chew. As stated before, Robert Kennedy plays himself in news clips, which was the only sensible thing to do here; Mike Wallace and Walter Cronkite have cameos as themselves. <
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>Bonus features are generous. The 30 minute "BOBBY: The Making of an American Epic" goes behind the scenes with this impressive cast and talks about re-creating the June 1968 era. There is also a 30 minute panel discussion with eyewitness accounts from five journalists and other people who survived that night at the Ambassador and chat candidly about it. And there is a theatrical trailer. BOBBY is presented on DVD in a 2.35 "scope" screen ratio, so I recommend you buy or rent the widescreen edition. But please do see this very underrated and very powerful movie. It did not deserve to die in two weeks in a theater with minimal publicity, and it does not deserve to go unseen on home video. It is a movie you will remember. DAWSON'S CREEK's Joshua Jackson is Wade, a Kennedy campaign manager. <
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