Bobby is a Golden Globe Award-nominated historical drama film written and directed by Emilio Estevez. The film features an all-star cast and is a fictional account set in Los Angeles, California on June 4 and June 5, 1968, when Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated. It concerns the lives of many people inside the Ambassador Hotel that day, and Senator Kennedy's presence within the country during the late 1960s, through his bid for the Presidency, and at the hotel that night upon winning the California Primary.

Bobby premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it received a seven-minute-long standing ovation. The film was released in New York and Los Angeles on November 17, 2006; wide release followed on Thanksgiving, November 23, 43 years and a day after the John F. Kennedy assassination. Reviews from critics were mixed, but Bobby was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture.

Plot and characters

Bobby is a fictional account of events at the Ambassador Hotel on the day Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. The film recreates the ambience and themes of 1968 and invokes the hopes killed with Kennedy, by portraying this day-in-the-life of 24 fictional characters. It uses the ensemble plot device of the 1932 film Grand Hotel to tell the story (a film that is referenced in dialogue).

Anthony Hopkins stars as the retired but ever-present doorman at The Ambassador Hotel. Harry Belafonte plays his retired friend, with whom he engages in games of chess.

Lindsay Lohan and Elijah Wood appear as a couple opposed to the Vietnam War who get married so Wood's character can avoid being sent to Vietnam and possible combat duty, starting out just getting married, and ending in love.

Tim (Emilio Estevez) (who also wrote and directed the film) and Virginia Fallon (Demi Moore) are married entertainers on the downside of their careers. David Krumholtz plays their agent, Phil.

Sharon Stone plays a beautician married to the hotel's manager (William H. Macy), who clashes with his racist food and beverage manager (Christian Slater), who oversees an African American chef (Laurence Fishburne) and two Hispanic busboys (Freddy Rodriguez and Jacob Vargas). Other hotel staff portrayed are two phone switchboard operators, Heather Graham, (who is having an affair with Macy's character), and Joy Bryant.

Helen Hunt and Martin Sheen (Estevez's father in real life) portray married socialites and Kennedy campaign donors staying at the hotel.

Joshua Jackson (Emilio Estevez's co-star in the The Mighty Ducks trilogy), Nick Cannon, Brian Geraghty, and Shia LaBeouf play Kennedy staffers and volunteers; the latter two vie for the affection of a waitress played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead and are willingly distracted by a drug dealer (Ashton Kutcher). A Czechoslovakian reporter (Svetlana Metkina) finally gets the campaign staff to grant her an interview with Kennedy, but he dies before she can interview him.

In the end a small number of these characters, (Christian Slater, Helen Hunt, Elijah Wood, Brian Geraghty and Shia LaBeouf) are wounded in the shooting of RFK.

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack is primarily a compilation of music from the 1960s. The two newly recorded tracks are "Louie Louie", sung by Demi Moore, and "Never Gonna Break My Faith", written by Bryan Adams, Elliot Kennedy and Andrea Remanda, and sung by Aretha Franklin and Mary J. Blige.

The film's score is composed by Mark Isham.

Reception

The film received sharply-mixed reviews, with an average of 45% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Michael Medved gave the film three stars (out of four), calling the film "intriguing but imperfect." Medved added that he "can confirm that director/writer Emilio Estevez gets most of the feelings of the occasion right. But, the melodramatic, multi-character format proves somewhat uneven and distracting." Medved is unique amongst film critics in that he (at the time, a young Kennedy campaign volunteer) was present in the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel when Senator Kennedy was assassinated.

Richard Roeper of "Ebert & Roeper" said of Bobby that it featured "the most eclectic cast of the year. Estevez writes and directs with lots of passion, not so much subtlety." Roeper closes by saying, "Estevez wants the movie to be on the level of a Robert Altman film like Nashville, but falls short.

Lou Lomenick of The New York Post gave the film Bobby one star (out of four), saying that it was just another rip-off of a much better film, 1975's Nashville.

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine ranked Bobby as among the worst movies of 2006, giving it one star (out of four) and calling it "trite fiction" and a work of "insipid ineptitude".

This movie got a seven-minute standing ovation at the 2006 Venice Film Festival. Writer/director Emilio Estevez was nominated for the Golden Lion and won the Biografilm Award for Bobby.

Awards

Venice Film Festival

• Nominated for a Golden Lion, 2006 - Emilio Estevez
• Won Biografilm Award - Emilio Estevez

Hollywood Film Festival

• Won Best Ensemble Cast
• Won Best Breakthrough Actress - Lindsay Lohan

Golden Globe Award

• Nominated for Best Motion Picture - Drama
• Nominated for Best Original Song (for "Never Gonna Break My Faith" by Bryan Adams, Elliot Kennedy and Andrea Remanda).

Screen Actors Guild Awards

• Nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture

Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards

• Won PFCS Award for Breakout Performance of the Year (2006) - Behind the Camera (Emilio Estevez)

Historical accuracy

While Bobby is a work of fiction, the film contains some historically accurate representations. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated after midnight PDT, on June 5, 1968, in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel following his California Democratic primary election victory speech. In addition to Kennedy, five other people were shot, all of whom survived. Some valid political elements of his candidacy are shown.

The title role is almost entirely played by RFK himself. Spliced between, throughout, and within many scenes, is a patchwork of archival footage, radio broadcasts and photos of his presidential campaign along with other images and sounds of the Kennedy family, news broadcasts, and other media clips from the 1960s.

A few characters draw on the stories of real people. Tim Fallon (Emilio Estevez) and Virginia Fallon (Demi Moore) may be based on José Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney respectively. Both of them were present at RFK's assassination. However, most characters and their entwining plots are fictitious, representing late 60s archetypes. The five bystanders shot are all fictional.

At the actual Kennedy assassination a bus boy, Juan Romero, cradled Bobby in his arms and placed a rosary in his hands. In the film adaptation the bus boy's name is changed to José Rojas (Freddy Rodríguez), but his role is still the same. José has tickets to the Los Angeles Dodgers game, where Don Drysdale is expected to set the record of six consecutive shutouts, but is obliged to work a double shift. Drysdale did in fact achieve his sixth shutout on June 4, 1968, and was congratulated by Kennedy in his speech just before Kennedy was shot.

Anthony Hopkins' character of retired doorman, John Casey, in the movie is the name of an actual doorman at the Ambassador Hotel. Casey was no longer doorman after 1965, while Bobby's assassination takes place in 1968. At the end of the credits, it states, "'John Casey' is the name of an actual doorman at the Ambassador Hotel from 1928-1965. His portrayal in this film is not intended to reflect the actual facts of his life or legacy."

Bobby does not attempt to present the RFK assassination exactly as it occurred, nor does it attempt to explain the assasination. The five real wounded bystanders are not portrayed, nor are most key people who were present (George Plimpton, Rafer Johnson, Andrew West, James Scott Enyart, Thane Eugene Cesar, David Sanchez Morales, Paul Sharaga, Sandy Serrano, etc.) Rosey Grier may have been the person shown escorting Kennedy to the stage and wrestling with Sirhan for the gun. There is no treatment of Sirhan Sirhan's background or motives, whether he acted alone, nor anything to support or refute alternate or conspiracy theories to the murder.

Trivia

• Emilio Estevez's father Martin Sheen (who appeared in this film) is the only actor to act in both movies involving the Kennedy brothers (he also was the narrator on JFK).

References

External links

• Official Movie Site
• Bobby (2006) - MovieWeb
• Bobby - Rotten Tomatoes
• Bobby - Film Journal International
• Ambassador Hotel on Official Movie Site (created by ClickPopMedia)