365+ movies in 365 days: Day 37 - Bobby

Today I viewed the the 2006 film Bobby. This period drama, written and directed by Emilio Estevez, follows the lives of 22 people, during the hours leading up to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, on June 5, 1968.

The film tells fact and fictional events of the lives of 22 people played by an all-star cast including, Anthony Hopkins, Martin Sheen, Demi Moore, Lindsay Lohan, Elijah Wood, Sharon Stone, Harry Belafonte, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, Helen Hunt, Christian Slater, Freddy Rodriguez and William H. Macy. The play assorted hotel employees, guests or campaign workers whose lives intersect on this fateful day.

Estevez uses news footage to set the tone of the movie, the importance Kennedy's run for the Presidency and the current state of affairs in the United States. Then we are taken to the Ambassador Hotel on the day of the California Primary and follow the intersecting lives of a group of fictional characters. The film is slow going as we learn the relationships of all these people and how in some case they relate to each other.

The film is exceedingly slow. Since the events of that night live in historical infamy, taking us through the mundane events in the lives of fictional characters, who were not really there seems pointless. It is only the last 30 minutes of the film where the tension mounts and the movie touches you emotionally. I think its because as I watched, I understood what was lost, what was taken away from us in that moment.

This is an attempt at an epic film such as Nashville, but it does not really work. Except for a select few, we don't really see how these characters were joined in a single destiny. I was trying to understand the film's primary theme and I think, by listening to the speech by Robert Kennedy, played as a voice over during the film's ending, we are supposed to understand that all the people we saw in the film all have hopes and dreams for themselves and that no matter who we are, our backgrounds, our faiths, our jobs, we are all bound together by these common needs. That simple idea is lost in the over flowing script.

Technically the film is mostly well made. The blending of actual 1968 news footage and movie film is well done. The set decoration and period detail is excellent. I felt the editing was a little choppy, but the primary flaw of the film was the over-reaching screenplay. The film tried to hard to be important and in doing so beat the viewer over the head with its message.
At The Movie House rating **1/2 stars.