Bobby (2006)

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Directed by Emilio Estevez.

Starring Harry Belafonte, Laurence Fishburne, William H. Macy, Christian Slater, Sharon Stone, Elijah Wood, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Joy Bryant, Nick Cannon.

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Twenty-two people become unwitting participants in a tragic and defining moment of the 1960's in this period drama from actor and director Emilio Estevez. It's early June in 1968, and the California presidential primary elections are occupying the minds of many in the Golden State, with Robert F. Kennedy in a close race against Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey. The Kennedy campaign staff has set up camp at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, while the staff and guests become observers as the brother of fallen president John F. Kennedy sets out to pick up where his sibling left off. Paul (William H. Macy) is the manager of the Ambassador, and his wife Miriam (Sharon Stone) is a hairdresser who runs's the hotel's beauty salon. Angela (Heather Graham) is a receptionist working the hotel's switchboard who has been sleeping with Paul behind Miriam's back. Timmons (Christian Slater) is in charge of the hotel's restaurant and catering department, and makes no secret of his dislike of the African-Americans and Latinos under his employ. Miguel (Jacob Vargas) and Jose (Freddy Rodriguez) are two young Chicanos on the kitchen staff who have it in for Timmons, while Robinson (Laurence Fishburne) is an older black man who counsels them on dealing with their rage. Virginia Fallon (Demi Moore) sings in the hotel's cocktail lounge and has a serious problem with alcohol; her husband Tim (Emilio Estevez) is a Kennedy supporter and also her manager, and he's nearing the end of his rope in dealing with her problem. William (Elijah Wood) is a young man desperate to avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam; Diane (Lindsay Lohan) is a pretty young woman dating William's brother who agrees to marry him so William can avoid being drafted, though William is clearly infatuated with her while she considers this a marriage in name only. John Casey (Anthony Hopkins) is one of the owners of the Ambassador, and Nelson (Harry Belafonte) is an old friend who works at the hotel. And Jack (Martin Sheen) is a wealthy Kennedy campaign financier who is married to Samantha (Helen Hunt), an attractive but much younger woman. Bobby also features Joshua Jackson, Nick Cannon and Shia LaBeouf as young Kennedy campaign volunteers, while Ashton Kutcher, Joy Bryant, Kip Pardue and Mary Elizabeth Winstead also highlight the supporting cast. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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Reviews and discussions

Bobby (2006)
by JJ79 in JJ79 Blog

hasn't rated it.

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"Released: November 23, 2006Director: Emilio Estevez*****You would think in a movie named Bobby the titular character would show up at some point and be integral to the plot. Robert F. Kennedy (yes, that Bobby) doesn't, perhaps the the film's great credit. Instead, the myth of the man takes over as people from different walks of life converge on the Ambassador Hotel in June, 1968, for their own set of reasons, all of which ultimately show the power he had over the American people.With such an eclectic and A-list cast (including, but not limited to, Anthony Hopkins, Martin Sheen, Helen Hunt, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Ashton Kutcher and many more), there was a chance Bobby would fail at the very thing it was trying to do: celebrate the promise RFK had for divergent groups. The young praised him for his revolutionary thinking; the older because of his charismatic and thoughtful ways. And, truth be told, with as many main characters as there are here, the entire story does feel jumb ... " [More]

Bobby (2006, USA, Emilio Esteve ...
by CinemaRian in CinemaRian Blog

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"One of the advantages to dying is that you immediatley get credited with all the things you might have done if you had lived. Perhaps if Robert F. Kennedy had not been assissinated, he might been elected President and ended the war his brother started, made serious inroads into poverty in the United States and healed the racial and generational divide. Or maybe he might gotten slowed down in political tar or found the foriegn situation much harder to deal with. Who knows? One thing that does seem clear is that RFK was able to tap into some of zeitgiest that had been left in the wake of his brother. At a time when cyncism in the nation was at an all-time high, he began to allow people to beleieve that their goverment would continue working and that American greatness was not a thing of the past. The idea that Bobby convays is that the country took a wrong turn around the time of Vietnam that it has never really recovered from. Potential veiwers might be surprised to learn that t ... " [More]

Connie, Carla and Bobby Start L ...
by dibot in dibot Blog

liked it.

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"More reviews from the binge.Starter for Ten is one of those coming of age stories where a boy becomes a man and finds out what kind of person he really is. This time, James McAvoy ("The Last King of Scotland") stars and the setting is 1985 Bristol University with McAvoy learning about himself as he tries to make it in college, falls in love and enters the college game show. It's pretty typical storywise, but the characters and entertaining and the dialogue is witty. Very fun.Connie and Carla has two women (Nia Vardalos, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," and Toni Collette, "Evening") on the run from the mob who hide out as drag queens. It's not as bad as it sounds. There are several laugh out loud moments, musical numbers and, most importantly, David Duchovny ("Trust the Man"). Worth watching if it's on TV, but don't pay for it.I had a physical reaction of disgust to Live Free or Die. There's voiceover which is supposed to make us interested in the main character who h ... " [More]

Bobby is powerful, moving, comp ...
by GradysGhost in GradysGhost Blog

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"The year is 1968. A controversial war rages overseas. Planet of the Apes dazzles American audiences. Robert "Bobby" Kennedy is nearing the first victory on the road to winning the US presidential election where he promises to end racial prejudice, pointless and hateful violence, as well as the terrible crisis in Vietnam.And then, the night his presidential candidacy is to be decided, he is shot and killed in the Ambassador Hotel in L.A.Bobby is not Emilio Estevez's directorial debut, but it may well be the first honest-to-God good movie he's directed. The film has an ensemble cast of characters that each seem to feel a different connection to then-Senator Kennedy, whether it's simply greeting him and welcoming him into the hotel in the case of John Casey (played by Anthony Hopkins) or working by his side as a campaign volunteer like it is for Wade (Joshua Jackson).While Wade feels connected to the democratic process, constantly disparaging a reporter from socialist Czecho ... " [More]

The effect of one man
by BigJeffLebowski in BigJeffLebowski Blog

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"I admit a bias when it comes to the 1960s. It's a time I wish I had been able to experience. The music, the films, the literature, the art, and the very real belief that an individual could make a difference; I don't try to hide that I tend to get sweeped up and carried away by my romanticized notions of my father's era. Bobby plays to this nostalgic sensibility, though more in content than in form. Unlike Factory Girl, which was released the same year and concerns roughly the same time period, Estevez's film doesn't try to disguise itself as a product of the times it illustrates. Save for one scene which attempts to visualize an acid trip (which is, coincidentally, the film's worst segment, featuring Ashton Kutcher giving the film's worst performance) there are no true-to-the-period behind-the-camera histrionics. Instead, Estevez rips a few pages from the books of Robert Altman and Grand Hotel in an effort to define an era through a series of portraits all relating tangentia ... " [More]

Review by All Movie Guide

All Movie Guide

is neutral about it.

Hearing that a Bobby Kennedy prestige picture was planned for the 2006 awards season, movie fans must have assumed someone like Oliver Stone was at the helm, someone with the pedigree to bring this sacred American icon to the big screen. Emilio Estevez might not have been the last writer-director they envisioned, but with B movies like Men at Work and Rated X to his credit, he had to be pretty low on the list of logical guesses. As it turns out, every skepticism about his ability is totally justified. Bobby is a shallow mess of an ensemble picture, a protracted session of melodrama that thematically over-stretches from start to finish. It wasn't a bad idea to measure Kennedy's impact by taking the country's temperature on the day he was assassinated, with the presidential candidate appearing only as a tangential figure in newsreel footage. But Estevez' execution is seriously wanting. It's not for a lack of willing participants -- in fact, this might be one of the most powerhouse casts ever assembled, with all manner of performers eager to join in for some politically well-intentioned Robert Altman lite. Making do with one-third of the characters might have helped, if only because each is the personification of some heavy-handed social issue Estevez wants to shoe-horn in. What's more insufferable is how Estevez imagines these issues mirrored in today's society, making this a self-important metaphorical criticism of the Iraq war, immigration and other modern ills. Among the tired characters Estevez trots out are the hippie drug dealer (Ashton Kutcher), the boozy lounge singer (Demi Moore), the drafted youth on the eve of his enlistment (Elijah Wood), and a bickering kitchen staff whose on-the-nose dialogue boils over with race baiting. The Hollywood foreign press gifted Bobby with a Golden Globe nomination for best picture; rightfully, Oscar did not follow suit. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide

Tags: assassination , kennedy , nostalgic , loss , 1960s
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