Starring William H Macy, Christian Slater, Freddy Rodriguez, Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone, Lindsay Lohan, Laurence Fishburne, Emilio Estevez, Elijah Wood, Everyone
Written By: Emilio Estevez
Directed By: Emilio Estevez
Studio: Weinstein Company
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So was there anyone in Hollywood who WASN’T in this movie?! Geez, I never saw a cast so big with this much talent as this one. I didn’t know too much about this movie going in, but I thought it was all about Bobby Kennedy, and not the people that were effected by his assassination. Even though it’s not what I expected, I still found myself slightly intrigued with the film by Mr. Gordon Bombay.

Bobby takes place before the assassination of presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy and it follows around a bunch of people who were at the Ambassador Hotel in 1968 when he was killed. There’s so man y subplots in this film, it’s kind of hard to figure out what is what. But all the characters come together to one place in the inevitable assassination of Bobby Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan. Some of the characters that are focused on include a Latino kitchen worker, an old doorman, the switchboard operator at the hotel, a racist supervisor of the kitchen, an engaged couple that are together so the guy doesn’t have to go to war, a lounge singer and campaign workers who get stoned. As you can tell, there’s several storylines in this film and then some. But they all have one thing in common, the Kennedy assassination.

Going into this movie, I thought I was going to be seeing Bobby Kennedy a lot more than we did, and I mean A LOT more! While it may be interesting to some people what other people were doing before his assassination; I would have liked to have seen a biopic style movie instead. The film is interesting to see how this many people had something in common from this horrible event, but it would have been a more compelling movie to have Bobby the main focus. Its the name of the movie isn’t? I can see why Emilio wanted to make this movie, but I think the direction and focus is all over the place. I’m not really interested in these people and don’t really care if some kitchen worker can’t go to the Dodgers game. I want to know what Kennedy was doing before that night, and then maybe have these other people in the background if you need some sort of filler. I mean, if another director wrote this story and showed two campaign workers getting stoned on acid; they would have cut it because it wasn’t a strong scene and served no purpose to the overall story. I just think the whole movie feels like one big deleted scene and complete filler until the assassination happens. I think once the night finally comes around, that’s when the movie is better. As a viewer, you’re anticipating what’s going to happen next and when is Sirhan Sirhan going to kill Kennedy in the kitchen. If you decide to watch this film, I’d actually would just fast forward ’til the last half hour where the movie is the most interesting. The rest of the film is just irrelevant.

The special features on the DVD include a half hour making-of, eyewitness accounts from the Hotel and a trailer of the movie. The making of featurette reveals that Emilio was born to do this movie because he meet the Presidential hopefully when he was like 5 years old. According to his father Martin Sheen, he was so torn up over the death of Kennedy and he’s been working on this film his whole life. The featurette also includes interviews with some of the actors, and you find out that the movie was the last thing filmed at the Ambassador hotel before they tore it down.

Overall, I thought the movie could have been better and focused on Bobby Kennedy instead of people that were there at the hotel. The film still had a lot of great acting and a very impressive cast, but when the story and direction is all over the place; having that many movie stars in a film isn’t always going to cut it.

Features:
Bobby: The Making of An American Epic
Eyewitness Accounts from the Ambassador Hotel
Theatrical Trailer

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 CC

Video:
Widescreen 2.35:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:
Spanish

Favorite Scenes: The last half hour is when the film is most interesting.
Rating: R
Running Time: 119 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: