Bobby
Length: Single
Studio: MGM Distribution Company
Rated: R
Website: http://www.bobby-the-movie.com/
Release Date: 2006-11-23
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Lindsay Lohan, Elijah Wood
Director: Emilio Estevez
Screenwriter: Emilio Estevez
Music Score: Mark Isham, Chris Douridas
WorkNameSort: Bobby
Our Rating: 1.50
If there were an alternate universe where earnestness and good intentions were arbiters of excellence, then Bobby would be the year’s best. But there isn’t, and thus Emilio Estevez’s film is terrible, uninformative and embarrassingly amateurish in word and lensing. Estevez’s idea: Present an assortment of types populating Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel as a microcosm of a 1968 America changed forever by Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination at the same location. The film comes off as a vanity project for old-school lefty self-righteousness and a reunion of the writer/director’s ’80s Brat Pack-and-beyond alumni (Christian Slater, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone and Estevez himself). Only undemanding Boomers won’t be bored silly by the resultant soap and context-lite nostalgia; it’s depressing that the aggregate takeaway for under-40-somethings will most likely be: He was a great guy. He was killed. People were sad. Bobby deserves so much better; the film’s a crime.
This article appears in Nov 22-28, 2006.