Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4236 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-06-04
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 112 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Reviews
In the final quarter or so of Bobby, writer-director-actor Emilio Estevez finally starts tightening his grip on the viewer as we head inexorably toward the film's climax: the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen. In the course of these scenes--among them Kennedy's acceptance speech after winning the California Democratic presidential primary (the senator is seen only in file footage), his death at the hands of gunman Sirhan Sirhan, and the chaos and despair that ensued--Estevez steadily ratchets up the sense of tension and dread. Knowing exactly what's coming, while the characters onscreen don't, is excruciating, as is our grief at hearing RFK's own words, so eloquent, so hopeful and inspiring, as we watch the horrible events unfold and wonder what might have been (sure it's manipulative--but it works). But the rest of Bobby isn't nearly as compelling. Nor is it really about Kennedy, despite its obvious adulation of the man whom many thought would defeat Richard Nixon in the '68 general election. In the tradition of, say, an Irwin Allen disaster flick, we're invited into the lives of nearly two dozen folks, most of them at least partly fictional, who were at the Ambassador Hotel that June day, including guests, staff (kitchen workers, switchboard operators, management, etc.), campaign workers, reporters, and more.

There are lots of movie stars in the cast, and some of them (Sharon Stone, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy) are very good. But caring about the quotidian minutiae of these people's existences is a chore, and Estevez crams so many issues into his story (the Vietnam war, drugs, alcoholism, voting irregularities, adultery, racism, immigration, communism... even L.A. Dodgers pitcher Don Drysdale's streak of consecutive shutouts) and tries so obviously to establish parallels between then and now that too much of the movie feels gratuitous and forced. A warts-and-all film about Robert Kennedy's extraordinary life and career would be welcome. Unfortunately Bobby isn't it. --Sam Graham

Synopsis
An ambitious labour of love from writer/director/actor Emilio Estevez, BOBBY depicts the hope, anger, and frustration that gripped the U.S. in the late 1960s. With the civil rights movement still reeling from the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the country stuck in a quagmire over Vietnam, Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign preached a message of peace and tolerance. Ironically, that message would be his undoing, when on June 5th, 1969, a day after winning the California primaries, he was gunned down by a Palestinian terrorist. The film’s Ambassador Hotel setting serves as a microcosm of class and race, with characters ricocheting off each other like charged particles, until the inevitably violent denouement. In the hotel’s kitchen, the mostly Mexican staff suffer abuse at the hands of their bigoted manager Timmons (Christian Slater). This doesn’t go unnoticed by hotelier Paul Ebbers (William H. Macy), who scolds Timmons for his racist behaviour. But Ebbers’ own conduct is not without reproach; he’s having an affair with a switchboard operator (Heather Graham) behind the back of his beautician wife (Sharon Stone). Elsewhere, young Diane (Lindsay Lohan) prepares to marry her classmate, William (Elijah Wood), in order to save him from going to Vietnam, and two collegiate campaigners for Senator Kennedy remove their ties to take their first LSD trip, courtesy of a resident hippie drug dealer (Ashton Kutcher). As with the sprawling works of Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson, the sheer volume of characters--and celebrities portraying them--is often overwhelming, though Estevez succeeds in making each plot strand relevant to the story, if only to contextualise. While BOBBY is not a biopic per se, and will in no way be mistaken for a definitive statement on the man’s life and times, it is thoroughly adept at distilling both his message and the period of history in which he fought to deliver it.

Customer Reviews

The Worst Film, Based on an Historical incident that I have ever seen
I had been expecting an exciting, well-written plot and script, with dark characters who had good development. In actuality the film had poor character development, they were rather wet and uninteresting. The adulterous Hotelier didn't even come across as callous; the potentiality for even the slightest possibility for his dark scandalette was neglected. The deviation from the plot to those who had no relevance to the story made the time go by as slowly as possible, the salon scenes especially so. If you want to do a day of lead-up to an historical event, you ought to make it dark and scandalous, possibly in the style of a noir; the audience could empathise with the victim, who had been the only righteous character, among the myriad of corrupt ones.

Stunning cast, good film
This film tells the story of Bobby Kennedy, brother of assassinated President JFK, as he bid to become President himself. Bobby Kennedy was on the verge of winning the Democrat party nomination for president, until he was murdered, just moments after celebrating a critically strategic victory in California. This film centres around the hotel where Kennedy was murdered, following the lives of campaign staff, hotel staff and hotel customers in the days leading up to Bobby Kennedy's assassination.

To say there is an all star cast is an understatement, and rarely before has such a stunning collection of elite Hollywood actors appeared in the same movie. Needless to say, they do not disappoint. Anthony Hopkins is the distinguished hotel greeter, who recalls all of the famous people he has greeted. Sharon Stone is the ageing and beleaguered wife of the hotel manager, who is sleeping with dizzy blonde receptionist Heather Graham, who uses this position to get special favours and longer lunch breaks. Most of the actors are either Kennedy campaign staff who use the hotel as a base, or hotel staff, who try to get on with the job and their lives amidst this added pressure.

The film does not have any major weaknesses, but has a rather abrupt ending (although given the subject matter, this is maybe not a surprise). Another problem with the film is it flicks back and forth between hotel staff action and campaign staff action, which some viewers may find breaks their concentration.

All in all, the film is strongly recommended, although it is no match for Oliver Stone's movie JFK. The contrast being 'Bobby' tells the story leading up to the death, whilst JFK tells the story of the conspiracy theory after the death. It would be interesting to watch one film as a companion to the other.

A film both about RFK and not about RFK
This is a highly interesting film, one which combines the multi strand narrative technique recently seen in Magnolia ans Crash and places it in and around the events leading up to the assassination of Robert Kennedy. The only time we see the eponymous Bobby Kennedy is in newsreel footage of his presidential campaign. The film is about the events leading up to his death but it also more about other people, the key players such as his campaign managers and those with minor roles such as the kitchen staff at the Ambassador Hotel. Most of the events are seen through the eyes of these characters, all played with remarkable skill by an array of fine actors including Helen Hunt, Anthony Hopkins, Estevez himself and Laurence Fishburne.

The film is flawed, its flow is a little clunky at times but the power is there and the tension leading up to the assassination is very real and shows the promise and skill of the novice director Estevez.