BOBBY / Emilio Estevez (2006)

November 6th, 2006 by Scott Marks

Bobby (2006)
Written & Directed by: Emilio Estevez
Starring: Harry Belafonte, Joy Bryant, Nick Cannon, Emilio Estevez, Laurence Fishburne, Brian Geraghty, Heather Graham, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Hunt, Joshua Jackson, David Krumholtz, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Running Time: 120 min.

Rating:

Over the past month multiplexes unleashed a reenactment of the death of the future Queen of England, the pseudo-documentary murder of George W. Bush and now triple threat Emilio Estevez “re-imagines” the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. While the war rages on, dead politicians seem to be quite the rage in Movieland.

According to the poster for Bobby, “He saw wrong and tried to right it. He saw suffering and tried to heal it. He saw war and tried to stop it.” Too bad Robert F. Kennedy didn’t live to read this script and insist on repealing it.

As a writer, Emilio Estevez has crafted a lumbering version of a not-so-Grand Hotel, that MGM warhorse that assembled a parade of dazzling star power under one enticing roof. Estevez goes so far as quoting the film’s most famous line, “The people come, the people go” Set it afloat and you’d have a special two-hour dramatic movie-of-the-week spin-off of The Love Boat. Sink it, and it’s called The Poseidon Adventure.

The film chronicles the personal dramas of twenty-two fictional characters who all wind up at Los Angeles’ famed Ambassador Hotel on the night of June 5, 1968. Sharon Stone, rapidly entering her Jacqueline Stallone period, is the hotel hairdresser married to manager William H. Macy who is making time with switchboard operator Heather Graham. Macy fires Christian Slater for some mildly racist comments and he in turn alerts Stone of the affair. Ms. Stone is saddled with such sagacious pearls as, “We’re all whores. Some of us get paid.”

Seniors won’t be disappointed as they watch doorman Anthony Hopkins and Harry Belafonte whiling away their afternoon together waxing nostalgic about old age. I’m sure that Mr. Estevez found resonance in an Irishman and a Negro united by a chessboard in the midst of the civil rights movement.

For the teenagers in the audience, there is Lindsay Lohan as a nice girl who spares her “good friend” Elijah Wood a trip to Vietnam by consenting to be his bride. And what would a Kennedy film be without dad Martin Sheen? Not counting The Dead Zone, Mr. Sheen has twice portrayed Bobby’s older brother. He and Helen Hunt play a bickering married couple who appear to have stepped out of a Carnival Cruise brochure.

There are plenty of should-have-been-left-on-the-cutting-room-floor scenes involving Brian Geraghty and Shia Labouf as a pair of Youth for Kennedy volunteers who decide to blow off their election day campaigning in favor of tuning in and turning on with Ashton Kutcher.

The only remotely amusing bit of casting is Estevez playing a pussy whipped, pooch-toting husband opposite former real-life lover Demi Moore’s Vegas superstar renown for her song stylings as well as an insatiable thirst for Scotch. Ms. Moore’s wigs scream Liz Taylor while the actor-turned-spouse-turned-manager relationship suggests Ann-Margret and Roger Smith.

The screenplay is overburdened with obvious irony. An election official clearly spells out “Card Hole Aggregate Debris” as an acronym for those 2004 election-spoiling chads. Even talk of that current hot button debate illegal immigration is added for paradoxical ballast.

With no idea how to pull it all together, Estevez resorts to file footage underscored by RFK’s narration. An attempt to match grainy stock footage of Kennedy’s final speech with staged events fails miserably. It would have been wiser to rely on cutaways to television monitors.

Legend has it that that Estevez completed the script one week before 9/11. Given all the coincidence, heavy-handed moralizing and vast and sundry characters, I was shocked to learn that it pre-dated Crash.

Prior to this Estevez directed the garbage man comedy Men at Work, the imperceptive Wisdom and the unintentionally uproarious political drama The War at Home. Leave it to him to turn Bobby into The Ambassador.