Bobby
Directed by Emilio Estevez
Bold Films, 2006
By Jessie Skinner
John Waters once said that his dream movie would be one where “everything is fake. The trees, the grass, everything”. This idea has a curious aesthetic, but I would prefer something a little more extreme: a movie in which every role — no matter how insignificant — is played by someone famous. I’ve had this idea for a couple years now, but apparently Emilio Estevez has access to my thoughts and has gone and done it for me. Bobby — the actor/writer/director’s love-letter to the late senator Robert F. Kennedy — is a stew full of known faces. A who’s-who of this decade’s most beloved and respected actors (oh, and Christian Slater) lace up as a who’s-who of hotel gatherers circa 1968 to pay respect to Kennedy. For what reason, though, is lost on this child of the 90’s. Average movie-goers should recognize the actors of almost every speaking role, out of a pile of about 30 characters. This recognizability, the gimmick of a film seemingly much too earnest to rely on gimmicks, distracts the audience to the point where it almost makes up for the film’s otherwise total banality.
Estevez makes best use of this when he finds an actor willing to slip comfortably into small shoes, like the role of Anthony Hopkins as a doorman who likes to play checkers and talk about the fact that he’s a doorman. I’ll buy that much, as Hopkins knows the world of an ensemble movie enough to keep his efforts subtle. But he is an exception to the central problem with Bobby: it is filled with people who can’t act. Names like Heather Graham, Lindsay Lohan, and Ashton Kutcher may look a tad intriguing on the film’s poster, but their inability to ease up and be natural makes a mess of the entire thing. They and a host of others (especially the younger actors) struggle to be serious. Kennedy himself is seen only in stock footage, and some shots obscuring his stand-in’s less-than-Kennedyesque features. These moments are a nice break from the rest of the many stories, which among other things, involve a lot of blustering on about race, politics, and drug issues of the era. In the end, the film is turned into an ugly collision between genres, hopping across romance, psychedelic ponderings, politics, and some grey areas in between.
This mish-mashing might have been fine and dandy if it weren’t for the terrible script. Like many political dramas, the film can’t seem to separate itself from a dialogue that never rises above the surface. We’re forced to watch minorities talk about being minorities, acid freaks talk about acid, and Bobby Kennedy (in voiceover) pitching very predictable political taglines. There is no sense of his uniqueness, let alone that of any of the other characters in the hotel. Estevez evidently hopes Bobby will leave the viewer with a feeling of a hope that may have been squashed upon his title character’s assassination, but all I felt was a resounding “so-what?”
Hello..
Just felt like reading more of your writing. I don’t even remember this movie coming out.. was I in a coma during January? Yes, you’d know better than I would.
I’m going to have to harass you soon. You better be coming to Ottawa in April, mister.
Keep reviewin’, I dig!!