Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31859 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-01-02
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 99 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Written and directed by actor Tim Robbins (who also plays the title role), this 1992 mock documentary about an upstart candidate for the U.S. Senate is smart, funny, and scarily prescient in its foreshadowing of the Republican revolution of 1994. Bob Roberts is a folksinger with a difference: He offers tunes that protest welfare chiselers, liberal whining, and the like. As the filmmakers follow his campaign, Robbins gives needle-sharp insight into the way candidates manipulate the media. While the film follows Roberts's campaign, it also covers a fringe journalist (Giancarlo Esposito), who may have dug up the kind of dirt to push Roberts's campaign off the rails. Robbins captures the chilly insincerity of this right-wing populist and fills his cast with terrific supporting players, including Alan Rickman as the campaign's shadowy financier and Susan Sarandon and Peter Gallagher as a pair of airhead TV news anchors. --Marshall Fine

Synopsis
Tim Robbins stars in his directorial debut as right-wing folksinger Bob Roberts in this satirical mock documentary. Roberts is joined on the Pennsylvania senatorial campaign trail by a British documentary filmmaker who offers insight into Roberts, his staff, and his supporters. Roberts is the anti-Bob Dylan, wowing his supporters with tunes such as 'Times Are Changin' Back' and 'Wall Street Rap' (which includes a video send-up of Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'). With his clean-cut good looks and squeaky-clean image, Roberts appears as American as apple pie. Yet, like most politicians, he harbours some nasty secrets, including potential involvement in illegal drug trafficking and bank scandals. And like most politicians, he is a master at manipulating the media. Roberts's political trickery turns serious when an innocent man is accused of attempting to assassinate the candidate. Some of Hollywood's best appear as news anchors and reporters, including Susan Sarandon, James Spader, Peter Gallagher, and Helen Hunt. Gore Vidal is immensely believable as the liberal incumbent trying to keep his Senate seat, battling Robbins, who is the consummate politician of the 1990s: lots of fluff and not much substance.

Customer Reviews

Robbins directorial debut is a worthy near miss
A small gem of a film, deservedly re-released 13 years after its original debut.

Tim Robbins performance as the smoothly amoral Roberts is unsurprisingly excellent, sharing the steely reptilian qualities that made the Players Griffin Mill so memorable. What's more surprising is that his directorial debut is so deftly handled, as a thin plot is obscured by the films pace and narrative drive.

A number of cameos from famous faces newscasting are trumped by the performance of resident polymath Gore Vidal as the incumbent congressman opposing Roberts, offering a counterpoint of genuine morality to the twisted values Roberts represents.

Intelligent, without being quite as clever as it thinks it is, the film ultimately can't decide if it's a morality play or a satire, and as such doesn't ultimately succeed, though it's a very worthy effort. Robbins can reflect that his first stab behind the camera has the look of Robert Altmans work (without threatening the heights achieved by Short Cuts or The Player) and that's not a bad place to start.

Intelligent, funny, scary satire
I must say i have been waiting for a long time for this to come out on DVD. Bob Roberts is just a fabulous movie made before George W was in the whitehouse makes it all the more frightening.
Watch it and expand your mind

Most Underrated Film/Doc in History
This should be a classic but it's probably too intelligent for the mass market. I imagine crowds of cinemagoers at the time probably thinking "I don't get it, is this a documentary about a real person".
The music alone makes this film/spoof Doc superb.

With music and script by the lead actor Robbins, a folk singing presidential candidate, the entire documentary is a moving, terrifyingly honest look at the American Political Machine'.