Bobby

DETAILS:
Released - 26 January 2007
Certificate - 15
Running Time - 112mins
Director/Screenwriter - Emilio Estevez
Producers - Edward Bass, Michel Litvak, Holly Wiersma
Cinematography - Michael Barrett
Editing - Richard Chew
Music - Mark Isham
Theatrical distributor - Momentum Pictures
Country - USA
Awards - 2 Golden Globe nominations for best original music and best drama motion picture as well as Screen Actors guild nomination for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture

SYNOPSIS:
June 4th 1968: The Ambassador Hotel California, Senator Robert Kennedy is about to give a speech as part of his presidential campaign. As all the hotel and campaign staff await his arrival, we embark upon a vast array of individual narratives in an attempt to contextualise the general political feeling of the time. In these whole host of stories; Lindsay Lohan marries Elijah Wood to prevent him being sent to Vietnam, Laurence Fishburne and his kitchen staff including Freddy Rodríguez debate about race and baseball, Hotel manager William H. Macy cheats on his wife Sharon Stone with a call girl Heather Graham , Christian Slater is a Kitchen supervisor fired by Macy for his racism, Anthony Hopkins is a retired hotel doorman discussing his old age whilst playing chess with a friend, Martin Sheen is a campaign strategist who is growing apart from his wife Helen Hunt more concerned with her material possessions, two campaign staff including Shia LaBeouf trip on new found drug LSD, Demi Moore is a deluded aging alcoholic lounge singer and Joshua Jackson is a campaign leader sceptical in letting Czechoslovakian journalist have a personal interview with Kennedy. Occasionally through each personal account plays stock footage of RFK calling for a better society. Unaware of the assassination that will ensue each characters life will never be the same again.

REVIEW:
Emilio Estevez has matured a lot since his Brat Pack days. Most remembered for his role as The Mighty Ducks coach Gordon Bombay this is certainly an ambitious project to step up to. Personalising class and race divisions through hotel staff is certainly a laudable idea and being the less famous younger brother may well be a subject he can relate to. Although, anybody looking for a biopic of Robert Kennedy read this review before you see Bobby, because by no means is the purpose of this film to educate or retell his life story. Although, Estevez’s political bias is certainly apparent as his portrayal of Bobby himself is only shown through old television footage, which seems to put him on a pedestal as a sort of messiah figure.

The films main flaw is its overloaded star studded cast. There are simply too many split narratives. The film is essentially a drama sketch show, each character’s story is not given time to develop and every actor’s appearance is just short of a cameo. Instead of setting up the basis of each character, we are left to rely on our preconceptions of their typical roles, giving them no room to explore their varying talents. The phrase, too many chefs spoil the broth comes to mind. Every actor plays themselves and in turn creates one dimensional characters, e.g. Elijah Wood is a nervous teenager, Heather Graham is an attractive young woman, Anthony Hopkins is an old man and Laurence Fishburn is Morpheus working in a kitchen! The point of the film is to empathise which each person, to try and bring the politics of the time down to a personal level. But this fails because each character is neither realistic, moving nor believable. They are all ideological mouthpieces, spouting advice or sentimental rubbish. Morpheus comparing one of his kitchen staff to King Arthur and Martin Sheen trying to open up to his wife are sentimentalised cringe-worthy scenes.

The film is structurally flawed, after each disjointed story comes another without any evidence of progression. All the plot loopholes are simply solved and given closure with everyone’s love for Bobby Kennedy. Attempting to focus on too many themes, and feelings of discrimination of the late sixties; Age, race, drugs, corruption, class division, power and sexism, to name but a few, are briefly brushed upon, but never given any real exploration. The whole film time is used to set up a story that never occurs, it is never leading anywhere but to an assassination.

However, for all Estevez’s flaws this is certainly an encouraging debut. It may not be as perfect as other split narrative cinema but there is definitely potential here. The assassination of Bobby at the end is the most emotionally charged assassination scene to climax a film since Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. The montage of people injured from bullets whilst Robert Kennedy’s most compassionate speech is played in the background, is certainly poignant as well as haunting. However this is too little progression too late.

TO SUM UP:
Bobby is fairly symbolic in using hotel staff as a metaphor for the American society of the time. However, these confused ensemble of characters lack the emotional depth of Magnolia and the political resonance of Nashville. Overall this provides a mildly entertaining but otherwise forgettable watch.