“When you make a move out of stress or anger, it always ends in catastrophe.”
I can remember wanting to see Bobby when it was originally released. I watched this today and although I did not hate it or really like it I am glad I waited all this time to view it without paying for it (my brother owns the DVD). I feel like having gone through school and really learning about America during the time period of the film and a little bit more about Robert Kennedy I was able to understand it better than I would have five years ago.
Bobby takes place in the Ambassador Hotel where is eventually shot. It tells the story of several people and how Kennedy will/has shape/d their lives and what their lives have been like to that point. There are a lot of race issues between blacks and whites and Hispanics. A young couple is getting married so he will not be shipped off to Vietnam but will instead go to Germany. A once famed lounge singer is performing before RFK takes the podium. The manager of the hotel is cheating on his wife (who is a beautician in the hotel) with one of the telephone operators. A man who used to be the door man plays chess and hangs around the hotel like he usually does. The kitchen manager is a racist and gets fired. A few more people and their stories are highlighted as well. Everyone pretty much has a connection to Bobby Kennedy.
The stories I felt are extremely drawn out and a lot of them are so boring but the significant ones like the ones dealing with race that were of great significance to the time were very interesting and fit very well. I did not feel too much sympathy for a lot of the people but at the end of course you do when they are all sad over the death of RFK and especially because some of them get shot as well. It was very sad to see actual news footage of Kennedy; all the man wanted was peace and for a better America and he was killed before any of that could happen. You can see he was very passionate in views and wanted the best for his fellow Americans.
Emilio Estevez wrote and directed the movie. He did a decent job but the movie is very dull. Right from the beginning there is really no interest there is nothing that right away grabs your attention. The only time my attention was piqued was when there were old movie references and a reference to Anne Bancroft in The Graduate that had been released that year. The end where Kennedy is killed and when everyone’s stories come together is the only really interesting part. I guess the whole point was to show that this was just another typical day in a very popular hotel that was no stranger to seeing important people come through with the staff and visitors leading a very typical day or either a special day in their lives and then this tragedy happened.
The cast was good but Estevez I feel wasted a lot of their talent with a dull story and direction. Sharon Stone I felt was the best one out of the entire cast she was very very good. Anthony Hopkins was great as the former door man who had worked at the hotel since the 1920s. I want to give a great amount of credit to Lindsay Lohan, she could have been a decent actress, you can see it here that she did have a lot of talent but unfortunately she threw it all away. Much praise goes to Freddy Rodriquez, Joshua Jackson, and Nick Cannon.
Brian Geraghty who plays Jimmy in the movie (he goes on a hilarious LSD trip with Shia LaBeouf and Ashton Kutcher) is related to one of my youngest brother’s friends. It is pretty cool to see a guy from my home town and who went to my high school (several years before me) in a movie with so many actors in it. My brother Anthony who is a huge film buff exchanged some emails with Geraghty. Anthony does remember asking Geraghty about Bobby but he cannot remember what his response was… my brother is a butt head and did not save the emails.
Bobby is an alright movie. It does have strong scenes throughout that make it incredible to see how far America has come in so many aspects. The ending scenes that we know are sadly coming are the only good ones because of how actual news footage and filmed footage for the movie were put together. There are moments where you can see what Emilio Estevez was trying to portray and get across but because it is so drawn out the points are lost. Bobby would definitely not be the first movie I would recommend to someone but it is one that if you have the opportunity to see just watch it.
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