Bobby
Review by Fritz Esker
Writer/director/actor Emilio Estevez (last seen on the big screen directing Men at Work) aims for Oscar nominations with Bobby, his sprawling, Crash-like melodrama featuring a huge cast of characters interacting on the day leading up to Robert Kennedy’s assassination in 1968.
I’m not kidding when I say the cast is huge; there must be something like 25-30 major characters here (played by everyone from William H. Macy to Demi Moore to Harry Belafonte to Estevez himself). However, the size of the cast becomes a real problem. At only 111 minutes, the film has nowhere near enough time to adequately develop any of them. Estevez would have to be as efficient as Ingmar Bergman in his prime to give us characters that truly register under such circumstances. Since he is not, what we get is a series of stock characters having largely bland interactions.
While its sprawling cast calls to mind films like Crash and Nashville, the film’s conceit of following what seems like a normal day at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, only to have it end in tragedy, actually recalls this year’s far superior United 93. However, United 93 worked in part because everything leading up to the highjacking seemed genuinely mundane and ordinary. The juxtaposition of those events with the hijacking was jarring, unsettling, and powerful. In Bobby, however, practically every character has a major epiphany (accompanied by a soliloquy) before Kennedy gets assassinated, rendering the power of the assassination itself moot.
One thing that is jarring is the archival footage of Kennedy himself. Listening to him talk and give speeches is an all too painful reminder of how utterly lacking in charisma, spine, and focus most present-day politicians are (and I’m referring to politicians of both parties when I say this).
In the end, the film clearly hopes to be an Oscar contender. Everything about it screams “Look at me, I’m a prestige movie.” Sadly, it ends up feeling more like a TV movie of the week than a genuine awards contender.