Bobby

Bobby is a 2006 film, directed and written by Emilio Estevez (who is also featured in the film) which is set on June 4th-5th 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. What is significant about this, is that in the early hours of the 5th June, Robert F Kennedy was assassinated in this hotel.

Whilst this event hovers other the background of the story, Estevez's film focuses on a collection of characters who are all in the hotel on the this historic day. These include retired doorman John (Anthony Hopkins), fading star singer Virginia Fallon (Demi Moore), the hotel manager (William H Macy) and his wife (Sharon Stone), Mexican-America busboy Jose (Freddy Rodriguez), young couple Diane (Lindsay Lohan) and William (Elijah Wood) and the wealthy campaign donors Jack (Martin Sheen) and Samantha (Helen Hunt).

Every couple, or individual that the film focuses on is dealing with their own problems, these include, alcoholism, mortality, adultery and depression. In addition to the personal issues, the film also depicts well the changes of the late 1960s in America, with the rise in protests against the Vietnam War, the continuing struggle for equality for Hispanics and for African-Americans in the aftermath of Martin Luther King's death; all of which is piqued by the hope injected into the young and old by Bobby Kennedy's election campaign; which calls for a move towards equality and away from the hugely unpopular war. Of course, the tragedy is that the audience is well aware that Kennedy will not be president, and that the 'next President of the United States' is going to die pretty soon.

Estevez does a good job of keeping the pacing moving along quite nicely, there are some times when the film drags a little; Laurence Fishbourne has to give a couple of monologues that seem to go on a bit, and some of the characters are a little stereotypial; for instance Ashton Kutcher's drug dealer, but on the whole it's quite an interesting film.

I really enjoyed Demi Moore's performance as Virginia, a woman who is pretty much falling apart. Good work is also done by Freddy Rodriguez as Jose, a busboy, a character clearly based on the man pictured in the image of Kennedy after he has been shot. I also enjoyed Lindsay Lohan, who gives a promising performance here, which makes me hope that she will pull herself around soon, because she is obviously a good actress away from the booze and drugs. I'd also like to mention that I quite enjoyed Shia LaBeouf as one of the campaigners who gets sidetracked by drugs and Nick Cannon as the African-American Dwayne, searching for something to believe in after the death of Martin Luther King.

Bobby is a good historical drama, with some strong performances that, whilst aspects of the events were perhaps exaggerated (no one other than Kennedy died), it remained a solid film.