Bobby (2006)

*Spoiler/plot- 2006, A film covering the many lives that intersected in 1968 during the Californian presidential election involving Robert Kennedy's murder in Los Angeles.*Special Stars- Anthony Hopkins, Lawrence Fishburne, Helen Hunt, Demi Moore, William Macy, Martin Sheen, Sharon Stone, Christian Slater. Dir: Emilio Estevez *Theme- Many lives are connected as we live through life.*Based on- True occurrences around the R.F.K. assignation at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.*Trivia/location/goofs- A giant star cast in this film. Shot at the hotel in question.*Emotion- A character driven plot situations that was well acted and beautifully written by a stellar cast. This film did over do the beatification or sainthood of Senator Robert Kennedy due to the political leanings of the writer and director. People who also lived through the time might see things more rationally.

In this production the director attempts to return us to the mood of the late 60s - an era where too many of us believed the improbable was the likely and the customary was the enemy. Estevez employs the technique of "look(ing) at things the way they {were}, and ask why" ... then dream of what never was but try to make it true on camera.The film is filled with fictional accounts of the invented lives of guests and employees at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles - "people com(ing), people go(ing), nothing ever happening" until the final moments of the film. Yet in this paean, the title character is treated so reverentially the role of Bobby remains uncast. Instead, Estevez uses news clips to establish mise-en-scène. Unlike the film's never identified shooter, the director misses.The film's only contrast is that it omits important historical facts in preference for the superfluous. Despite the film's buildup of election year hope in the fictional characters, we are not shown the Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan's motive of despair or Bobby Kennedy's firm support of Israel during the Six-Day War and beyond. Despite the unacknowledged troop buildup in Vietnam by John Kennedy, the film hovers on Bobby's desire to remove those troops quickly. Despite the hope in RFK presented through the eyes of a young black "everyman" campaign worker, the film neglects to tell us that, while Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy issued a directive authorizing the FBI to wiretap Martin Luther King and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Instead of these historical relevancies we are treated to a view of how two of Kennedy's campaign workers would have looked if they had tried to play tennis while wearing business suits after dropping acid - more fiction.As Bobby in life, the film "Bobby" is full of hope but leaves us well short of its goal. Only one Bobby is blameless for this. 2 stars.

It breaks your heart when the movie depicting tragic events from 1968, seems so familiar 42 years later. Same hopes, same crushed dreams, and almost nothing changed. Emilio Estevez told this touching story in a simple and straightforward manner, not letting artistic vanity to get in the way. He brought together marvelous cast that played these precisely drawn characters perfectly. The standout, perhaps is wonderful Sharon Stone that grew from silly sex symbol into very fine character actress. It seems so hard to change this country. People are in love with the self-delusional image of free, maverick land that couldn't be further from the truth. Hence, we are being tortured on daily basis with the dangerous inanities of Sarah Palin's and Glenn Beck'. Great movie for no so great times. God help us...

OK, so I gave it a "gentleman's seven." I saw this for the first time last night on TV and got confused from the beginning. It's billed as being about Robert F. Kennedy, hence the title "Bobby." But instead, it's about this one day in June 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. And from throughout the movie, I kept asking myself, "Who are these characters featured in the movie, why are they important, and when do we get to why I'm watching this movie in the first place?" I was a college student in Texas listening to the news that summer when Robert Kennedy was murdered in California. I was a high school student in Dallas, and the school's annual school book photographer, who took a memorable picture of President Kennedy shaking hands with the crowd at Love Field about 40 minutes before he was murdered.I really expected a tad more from this movie titled "Bobby." It just seems to be a way to get a lot of aging actors/actresses on the payroll.