BOBBY (R) ***1/2

 

Directed by Emilio Estevez. 120 minutes.

Starring William H. Macy, Helen Hunt, Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Elijah Wood, Lindsay Lohan, Emilio Estevez, Shia LaBeouf, Martin Sheen, Nick Cannon, Joshua Jackson, Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Brian Geraghty, Laurence Fishburne, Freddy Rodriguez, Heather Graham, David Krumholtz and Christian Slater. Released by MGM Pictures.

 

This week saw the release of two undeniably political movies that fall on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, not in their views, which are probably pretty similar, but in their mood. One film, Richard Linklater’s Fast Food Nation, is vehemently angry. The other, Emilio Estevez’s Bobby, is both hopeful and sad, relying on nostalgic memories of June 1968; memories which Estevez probably does not have being that he was five or six years old at that time. No, the memories portrayed in Bobby, which, like Fast Food Nation, relies on a Robert Altman-esque style of filmmaking by incorporating a number of characters around a specific event or theme, are a collective memory of just how it must have felt when idealism died on that same fateful night that presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy did. I really liked both films, but it is funny to see how movies both so political in nature can be so far apart in tone.

 

The other primary difference between Linklater’s film and Bobby is that, in the aforementioned Altman style, Linklater uses a handful of characters involved in the fast food industry, while Estevez uses several hands full. There are a lot of big names in this film. I’ve heard Bobby being referred to a political Airport or Grand Hotel, which is referenced here by Anthony Hopkins’ character, but the comparisons I read were used to belittle the film. In fact, both Fast Food Nation and Bobby have received a fair amount of criticism from a number of critics for the very reasons I find them interesting.

 

Admittedly, there are probably a few too many characters in Estevez’s film, which takes place at the famous Ambassador Hotel in California, where Kennedy’s primary election night headquarters were stationed and where he was shot down in the kitchen after delivering a speech about his California victory. There are a few too many plotlines here. But most of them work. William H. Macy is the hotel manager and his wife, played by Sharon Stone, is the hotel’s hair stylist. Macy is sleeping with phone operator Heather Graham and sparring with kitchen manager Christian Slater, who will not let his mostly Hispanic and black kitchen staff leave work to vote. In the kitchen, we have Freddy Rodriguez as a cleaner. He provides some of the film’s best moments, especially when speaking to Laurence Fishburne, who plays the head of the kitchen staff. There is a great scene where Fishburne points out a kitchen staffer’s anger and an even better one when Rodriguez cannot get off work and, therefore, hands Fishburne his tickets to the Los Angeles Dodgers game, where we know pitcher Don Drysdale pitched a record-breaking sixth consecutive shutout.

 

Among the other characters are a washed up chanteuse played by Demi Moore; her bitter husband (Estevez); a young woman (Lindsay Lohan) who is marrying Elijah Wood against her father’s will to keep the young man out of the Vietnam War; Martin Sheen and Helen Hunt as an older married couple; a doorman who has worked at the hotel (Hopkins); an eager aide to Kennedy (an impressive Nick Cannon); a Kennedy staffer (Joshua Jackson) and many others. The only plotline that really stumbles is one involving two Kennedy aides (played by Brian Geraghty and Shia LaBeouf) who visit a hippie stoner (Ashton Kutcher in some inspired casting) to score some pot, but end up dropping acid and acting obnoxiously. This storyline merely provides the obligatory drugs and hippies that a movie about the late 1960s would seem to need to provide. Other storylines may not be as interesting as others, but, for the most part, they all play into the larger picture.

 

But the real star of the film is Kennedy himself. Seen only through archival footage, Kennedy’s eloquence on such controversial issues as the rich-poor gap, civil rights, the war in Vietnam and the environment during such an explosive era is remarkable. Considering the smattering of hot subjects we find ourselves subjected to these days on the nightly news (the war in Iraq, terrorism, North Korea, Iran, gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research, corruption- you name it) and how poorly most of our elected officials handle themselves, Kennedy’s demeanor seems almost alien. Estevez’s film is not only nostalgic to a bygone era where people could still be idealistic and hope that the future might change for the better, but he also uses Kennedy’s footage to show us how politicians could use thoughtful, reflective ideas alone to win over constituents.

 

The film, of course, ends tragically, but Estevez makes use of an archival audio recording of a Kennedy speech to maximum effect. Kennedy is shot in the kitchen, along with several of the other cast members. We hear one of the presidential hopeful’s speeches about how the era in which he lived must embrace change and how human beings’ violence against each other do not lead to those changes. The speech lasts between five and ten minutes, during which we see the response to the assassination. Characters who previously disliked other characters jump to their aid. People panic, running to the doors or just stand by shocked and crying.

 

Although Woodstock would not happen for another year and Altamont soon after would be representative of the decline of the peace movement against the war in Vietnam, making way for a decade of apathy and political scandal, RFK’s assassination represented to many people, including the mostly fictional characters in Estevez’s movie, the first signs that idealism had lost an important mouthpiece. Bobby works by giving us a panorama of small, mostly interesting storylines that are all interrupted by a momentous scene in history.