Bobby Release Date: November 17, 2006 Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Lindsay Lohan, Elijah Wood, Laurence Fishburne, Christian Slater, William H. Macy, Joy Bryant Directed by: Emilio Estevez, Emilio Estevez
Painted on a tiny canvas with a huge ensemble cast, writer/director Emilio Estevez's Bobby presents a poignant microcosm of June 1968. Robert Kennedy, his presidential bid in full swing, is the center of this universe and two dozen characters are the planets that revolve around him. The film takes place entirely in the legendary Ambassador Hotel on the day RFK is assassinated.
Whereas Oliver Stone's JFK was a study of John Kennedy's assassination and the conspiracy surrounding it, Bobby is more concerned with Robert Kennedy's life and legacy. Though the crux of the film is Kennedy's murder, it pays no attention to the assassin's motives. Instead it focuses on fictional characters RFK might have inspired, such as a hot-headed civil rights activist (Nick Cannon) who puts his faith in Kennedy after the loss of Martin Luther King Jr.
Stories of The Ambassador's many guests, workers and passers through cover the full gamut of social issues. A young woman (Lindsay Lohan) is so disgusted with seeing friends come home in body bags from Vietnam, she agrees to marry a boy she barely knows (Elijah Wood) to keep him from going to the front lines. The hotel's kitchen manager (Christian Slater) refuses to allow his Latino kitchen staff time off to vote. The hotel chef, a seasoned civil rights activist, (Laurence Fishburne) is a voice of reason as tempers flare. Meant as comic contrast to the many serious plotlines, the scenes of young white Kennedy campaign volunteers incommunicado in a black neighborhood dropping acid with a local dealer (Ashton Kutcher) are the film's weakest link. The directionless goofiness is so generic it could have been lifted out of any teen stoner comedy.
Alll in all, however, Estevez has pulled together the best political drama, fiction or otherwise, in recent memory. Avoiding Oliver Stone-like conspiracy theories, he draws from Robert Altman's playbook by piecing together a mosaic of characters as the floating camera weaves its way through the hotel's suites, kitchens, lounges and lobbies. Though heavy-handed at times, (particularly in the oft-revisited scenes of the Latino's debating equality in the kitchen) Estevez deftly blends a multilayered script filled with A-list talent, and tackles issues as prevalent today as they were 40 years ago. The film's opening title cards tell us that in 1968, the country was looking for "honorable withdrawal from an unpopular war." It insists Bobby was the man for his day but asks, "Where are such leaders for ours?"
