There are so many people involved that none of them are given a chance to be special or memorable, until they become victims of a senseless act of violence.
Bobby (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:161
Fresh:72
Rotten:89
Average Rating:5.6/10
Consensus: Despite best intentions from director Emilio Estevez and his ensemble cast, they succumb to a script filled with pointless subplots and awkward moments working too hard to parallel contemporary times.
Theatrical Release:26-01-2007
Synopsis: An ambitious labor of love from writer/director/star Emilio Estevez, BOBBY attempts to distill the hope, anger, and confusion that gripped the U.S. in the late 1960s. With the civil rights movement... An ambitious labor of love from writer/director/star Emilio Estevez, BOBBY attempts to distill the hope, anger, and confusion that gripped the U.S. in the late 1960s. With the civil rights movement still reeling from the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the country embroiled in the confusion of Vietnam, Senator Robert F. Kennedy's campaign preached a message of peace and tolerance. In a style similar to the sprawling works of Robert Altman or Paul Thomas Anderson, Estevez uses the June 4th, 1969, assassination of Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles as the means to take a snapshot of the problems facing the country as the 1960's came to an end. The hotel is a microcosm of class and race, with characters bouncing off each other until the violent conclusion. African-American head chef Edward (Laurence Fishburne) presides over a kitchen staffed primarily by Mexican Americans who are the victims of the racist restaurant manager, Timmons (Christian Slater). Timmons is reprimanded by hotel manager Paul Ebbers (William H. Macy), who is having an affair with a switchboard operator (Heather Graham) behind the back of his beautician wife (Sharon Stone). Meanwhile, a young Diane (Lindsay Lohan) prepares to marry her classmate, William (Elijah Wood), in order to save him from going to Vietnam, and two collegiate campaigners for Senator Kennedy remove their ties to take their first LSD trip, courtesy of a resident hippie drug dealer (Ashton Kutcher). Though the sheer volume of characters--and celebrities portraying them--is often overwhelming, Estevez is deft at making each plot thread convincing and involving. Though BOBBY is not a biopic and will in no way be mistaken for the definitive statement on the man or his life and times, it is thoroughly adept at distilling both his message and the time in which he fought to deliver it. [More]
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Elijah Wood
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Elijah Wood, Harry Belafonte, Nick Cannon, Emilio Estevez, Laurence Fishburne, Heather Graham, Helen Hunt, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, William H. Macy
Director: Emilio Estevez
Director: Emilio Estevez
Producer: Ed Bass, Holly Wiersma
Composer: Mark Isham
Studio: Weinstein Company
Reviews for Bobby
One awful 'dramatic' scene follows another, until we become almost awed (wait until you hear Fishburne's chef deliver a metaphorical speech about blueberry cobbler).
While these many plots vary in effectiveness and banality, the finale%u2014Kennedy's arrival the hotel and the violence that follows%u2014is undeniably moving.
Ham-handed and TV-movie flat, it states the obvious, then states it again and again and again.
A dynamite ensemble cast gives a good try but writer/director Emilio Estevez bites off more than he can script in a too ambitious Robert Altman experiment gone mediocre
It's this disconnect between historical reality and dramatic indulgence that keeps an otherwise worthy film from being completely satisfying. There are moments, though, where even the most hardened cynic may have to wipe away tears of regret and loss.
None of the characters is interesting on his own -- what makes them interesting is that, at the end of the day, they witness a murder. And Estevez hasn't even made that compelling.
Ultimately rises above its inadequacies; it's an earnest tribute to a time gone by, and to a symbol of hope.
It's a tin-eared movie, in many regards, history rewritten by that C-student who tries to jam too many footnotes into every character.
Whatever Bobby lacks in nuance, texture and depth it makes up for in idealism, passion and nostalgia for the era.
Oddly, it works, creating a pastiche of idealism, humour, loss and sadness.
A lot of quick, character-defining cameos, which makes the movie play out like a pilot for a sprawling prime-time television show.
There's not much subtlety to be found in this fictionalized historical drama. Worse, there's not much interesting going on, either.
A compelling film of tender moral decency that boasts a number of moments not to be shrugged off.
So keenly felt and so deeply imagined I couldn't help but be moved, even grateful for its bleeding-heart nostalgia -- which winds up feeling rather up-to-date.
...signals solidarity with the kind of late-1960 s liberalism that the martyred Bobby came to embody. It's a nostalgia trip, and is less interesting for its vagueness.
Estevez's true kindred spirit... is novelist Arthur Hailey... the political themes in Estevez's film are frequently submerged in soap suds: Despite all its noble ideas, 'Bobby' is less like 'JFK' than it is 'Days of Our Lives.'
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