Bobby

Bobby is a really interesting movie written, directed, and co-starring Emilio Estevez along with all his friends. It’s a fictional, yet based on truth account of what could have gone down at the hotel the day before Bobby Kennedy was shot, and what brings all these people there to the hotel that day, and why they are all around when the presidential candidate is shot. It's a movie you don't need to worry about having the ending of it spoiled.

What's most interesting to look at is how everyone is so very different in this movie. There are people represented from all walks of life and feeling different about the country and their place in it. But, there is one thing tying them all together. Hope. I think Estevez is able to bring the about the emotions and feelings of that time very well.

I was not super impressed with Bobby.

Although I am a history buff and have read a lot about the Kennedy dynasty, I could see what the movie was aiming to capture but almost cringed at the way in which it fell short.

To begin with, half of the acting is rather shallow. Two inept campaign people leave the trail and get high, and their subsequent behaviors are one of the many branches of the story. But they're not really that funny, or clever, and the idea falls flat. There are some tender moments between several of the couples whose lives intertwine around this one rarely-seen Senator Kennedy, yet for the most part the stories and people are underdeveloped. It's like there's too much being crammed all together, yet there is a lot of wasted space that could have been utilized more efficiently.

Bobby himself is only shown in authentic, vintage footage, yet the film attempts to splice the few moments they use him with the rest of the cast, which really doesn't work. Then they have a stand-body as the fallen hero. The seams of the fabric are showing quite clearly here, and they're not clean. There's also a weird attempt to include a Camelot reference. Irrelevant and cliche, basically.

The ending spends almost twenty minutes with real audio of a Senator Kennedy speech, which is moving, yet the slow motion and real-time video of the aftermath is slow, vague, and unconvincing.

Overall, I liked the idea for the piece, but it seemed like a lot of interesting drawing board ideas thrown together instead of choosing a few to develop more artistically and with more depth.

Poor Bobby. We loved you, anyway, Senator Kennedy.