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Movies / On DVD / Bobby
Bobby

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Bobby (2006)

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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.

Rated: 15

Runtime: 2 hrs

Genre: Dramas

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

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Reviews for Bobby

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141 - 160 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 >> >|
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Poignant yet fragmented - with trivial, star-studded subplots - it unabashedly idealizes RFK, presenting him in an almost saintly light.

Full Review Source: www.susangranger.com | comment Comment
11/17/06
Susan Granger
Susan Granger
www.susangranger.com

Star power alone pushes Bobby to a point where it's a comfortable failure,

Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | comment Comment
11/16/06
Brian Orndorf
Brian Orndorf
eFilmCritic.com

Bobby wishes it were Robert Altman's Nashville.

Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews | comment Comment
11/16/06
Jeffrey Chen
Jeffrey Chen
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

has so many storylines that it becomes near impossible to give a flip about any particular one.

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
11/16/06
Chris Cabin
Chris Cabin
Filmcritic.com

With so many movies winking and aiming for clever, Bobby arrives sopping wet with nostalgia and earnestness.

Full Review Source: E! Online | comment Comment
11/16/06
Caroline Kepnes
Caroline Kepnes
E! Online

A Crash-like roundelay of desperately manufactured bathos that covers the entire spectrum of miserable plotting and characterization.

Full Review Source: Film Freak Central | comment 2 Comments
11/16/06
Walter Chaw
Walter Chaw
Film Freak Central

An exercise in historical revisionism for folks who would rather be informed of breaking national crises through news feeds on All My Children.

Full Review Source: Newsday | comment Comment
11/16/06
Jan Stuart
Jan Stuart
Newsday

Written and directed by Emilio Estevez, Bobby is like an American-history textbook marked with thick yellow highlighter wherever a parallel might be detected between the Vietnam era and the reign of Bush II.

Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly | comment Comment
11/16/06
Scott Foundas
Scott Foundas
L.A. Weekly

It's an ambitious film drenched in sincerity and oozing with nostalgia that, despite the energy provided by its title icon via archival footage, falls flat dramatically in nearly every other way.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
11/16/06
Kevin Crust
Kevin Crust
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Estevez probably could have cut the cast in half and come up with a richer, stronger film.

Full Review Source: Associated Press | comment Comment
11/16/06
Christy Lemire
Christy Lemire
Associated Press

Everyone in this film is powerful.

Full Review Source: Christian Science Monitor | comment Comment
11/16/06
Peter Rainer
Peter Rainer
Christian Science Monitor

With Bobby, Emilo Estevez tries to link the intimate stories of nearly two dozen characters to a large and consequential public event the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

comment 1 Comment
11/16/06
A.O. Scott
A.O. Scott
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Bobby coasts along on a dread, and sorrow, it doesn't earn.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
11/15/06
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

Esteves's curious multi-strand film carries us to a quietly devastating conclusion.

Full Review Source: Freeze Dried Movies | comment Comment
11/15/06
Brian Juergens
Brian Juergens
Freeze Dried Movies

Every frame is informed and fueled by Mr. Estevez’s impassioned mourning for a figure who came close to changing the course of American history. Bobby is exciting, involving and riveting.

Full Review Source: New York Observer | comment Comment
11/15/06
Rex Reed
Rex Reed
New York Observer

Estevez means to eulogize the hopes of a nation, showing the night's impact on a group of hotel guests and staff cross-sectioned by age, race, and class. But his movie ends up buried under its stifling good intentions and dire execution.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
11/14/06
Jim Ridley
Jim Ridley
Village Voice

Estevez proves himself as a capable filmmaker by combining actual footage and speeches by Kennedy with new material to create something stirring and memorable.

Full Review Source: ComingSoon.net | comment Comment
11/14/06
Edward Douglas
Edward Douglas
ComingSoon.net

In the movie business, there's no such thing as 'truth in titling.' If there was, Bobby would be called A Bunch of Boring, No-Name, Cookie-Cutter Characters.

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
11/14/06
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews

Bobby has a spectacular cast, and Estevez has another twist there: well-known, famous actors play unexpected roles, try 'something different.'

Full Review Source: Entertainment Insiders | comment Comment
11/11/06
Janos Gereben
Janos Gereben
Entertainment Insiders

The movie has no real story to speak of, just a series of barely connected vignettes over the 24-hour period before RFK's demise, only some of which have anything to do with the ever-changing political climate of the early 1960s.

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
10/15/06
Jason Clark
Jason Clark
Slant Magazine
 
 
141 - 160 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | |< << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 >> >|
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