"Bobby"
In 2006, Emilio Estevez wrote, directed and starred in Bobby, an ensemble retelling of the hours before the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy on June 5th, 1968. Seen through the eyes of a myriad assortment of characters in and around the Ambassador Hotel, Estevez's film attempts to explain what the killing of Kennedy meant for the United States; the second Kennedy brother was a beacon of hope for millions, gunned down in his moment of victory at the end of the country's most tumultuous decade. Unfortunately, what should have been a moving and poignant story is instead a very mixed result.
America was a country at a crossroads in 1968, and all that America was in those days - drugs, infidelity, draft-dodging, racism and the odd glimmer of chivalry - is represented in the Ambassador Hotel on the night Kennedy was set to deliver his victory speech (having claimed California in the Democratic primary): William (Elijah Wood) is marrying Diane (Lindsay Lohan) to avoid being sent to Vietnam; Virginia Fallon (Demi Moore) gives in to her alcoholism as her singing career fades; two campaign volunteers (Shia LaBeouf and Brian Geraghty) are sidetracked by an acid trip offered by a drug dealer (Ashton Kutcher); the hotel manager (William H. Macy) cheats on his wife (Sharon Stone) with one of the switchboard operators (Heather Graham); the affair is busted by the racist kitchen manager (Christian Slater); his sous-chef (Lawrence Fishbourne) is impressed with the selflessness of a busboy (Freddy Rodriguez), who later shakes hands with Kennedy at the moment Sirhan Sirhan shoots him.
If you were a little star-struck at all the names there (and I didn't even mention Sir Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Martin Sheen, Helen Hunt and Estevez himself), don't worry, you're not alone. Bobby is a virtual Who's Who of acting (with Lindsay Lohan thrown in for good measure); and this, unfortunately, isn't a good thing. That's not a slight against the actors in Bobby - there's nothing wrong with any of their performances. But it's hard to remember why we're watching the movie when we go from one recognizable face to another, from one famous actor to another famous actor, to another famous actor, and another famous actor. It shoots the movie in the foot because it stops the story from telling itself. There's nothing wrong with casting established stars, of course; but one wonders why, exactly, Estevez threw every egg he had into one basket. It's distracting. There's a powerful story told in Bobby, but seeing a dozen A-list actors in one scene after another pulls our attention from the bigger picture.
That said, Estevez knows how to make Bobby speak for itself, which it does from its extensive archival footage. Whether showing the carpet bombing and casualties in Vietnam, the Civil Rights marchers, or Kennedy himself, Bobby gives a moving voice to America's fears, insecurities and hopes from 1968. The (mostly fictional) stories of the ensemble cast help, but I can't help think the movie would have been much more powerful if not for the celebrity onslaught. There are History Channel documentaries that do more with much less.
Don't get me wrong: the story of Robert F. Kennedy is remarkable enough, and Bobby does a fine job telling the final moments of that story. But that fine telling comes from the voice of Kennedy himself, and his "On The Mindless Menace of Violence" speech played over the chaos following his assassination makes us feel the loss of a brilliant life cut tragically short. You don't need a bunch of famous faces to have told us that. Estevez got a lot of aesthetic touches right in Bobby, like having the movie filmed on location, or playing "The Sound of Silence" (written by Paul Simon after Jack Kennedy's assassination) as Bobby makes his final speech; but it pains me to think of how much greater Bobby would have been if we didn't have half of Hollywood in it.
4.0/5.0: At its heart, Bobby is a great movie, but it sabotages itself with distracting & unnecessary star-spotting.
