Bobby

If this film were really about Robert F. Kennedy and his assassination in June of 1968, this might have been a really good movie. It's a powerful subject and one that could use a modern, up to day dramatization.

Sadly, "Bobby" is only partially about Bobby Kennedy. This film is more like "Grand Hotel" (or as the film's fans say "Crash"--they wish) built around a series of uninteresting vignettes performed by some big name actors playing characters at the Ambassador Hotel the day Robert Kennedy arrives and is killed. They may as well have called the film "Ambassador!"

It's hard to believe a movie that features such big name babes as Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Lindsey Lohan, Helen Hunt, Svetlana Metkina, Mary Elizabeth Winslead, Joy Bryant and Heather Graham could be as unsexy and disappointing as this one, but "Bobby" manages to pull it off. Only Heather Graham shows so much as her underwear, and of course the trick with her is getting her to wear any.

Most of the movies vignettes are pointless: Demi Moore plays a lush named Virginia Fallon who is performing at the Coconut Grove. She is married to the long suffering ex-drummer Tim, played by director Estavez. Sharon Stone, looking every bit her age is a very stereotypical beautician who is married to the hotel manager, played by the talented William H. Macy. Macy's character is having an affair with an Ambassador Hotel phone operator (Heather Graham). Helen Hunt is married to the much older Martin Sheen. He's been overcoming depresssion. She forgot her black shoes for the campaign party that night. They play tennis. Interesting stuff, huh?

Hunt also appears to have had some bad plastic surgery or has suffered a stroke of some sort. Her skin is pulled back and very unnatural looking. I saw her on Letterman to promote the film and she looked truely terrible. Here she's not quite as bad, but she's also not the Helen Hunt we all grew to love over the years.

Other vignettes include pointless moments with the retired Ambassador doorman (Anthony Hopkins) and his old friend Nelson (Harry Belefonte, given nothing to do); Shia LaBeouf and Brian Geraghty as a couple of Kennedy volunteers who buy acid from Ashton Kutcher (their "high" is easily the worst, most comically painful part of this movie) who looks like a hippy from a roadshow version of "Godspell" (a guy dressed like him in this movie would NOT have been admitted into the Ambassador in 1968, no matter how much money he had); Lindsey Lohan plays a girl who's agreed to marry her friend William (Elijah Wood) so he doesn't get sent to Vietnam, but then discovers she's really in love with him; etc. etc. etc.

Very few of these vignettes have ANYTHING to do with Kennedy and we never really see how his death makes any difference in their lives.

Other than some good old clips of Kennedy, the only other interesting bits in the picture are the vignettes about the kitchen help, played by Freddie Rodriguez, Jaedo Vargas and Lawrence Fishburne. They speak of many deep and thoughtful race issues. Interesting. My own kitchen staff just talks about cars, chicks and getting drunk.

When Bobby is mentioned in this film or seen in the many clips, he is presented somewhat as the second coming--a kind of Barack Obama of 1968. But at the time, many critics of RFK called him a ruthless opportunist. After all, it was Senator Eugene McCarthy of Oregon who was the first to challenge Lyndon Johnson's nomination for President. Kennedy got in when he realized Johnson was vulnerable and shoved McCarthy out of the picture. Last year a big picture was George Clooney's "Good Night and Good Luck" about Edward R. Murrow taking on red baiter Senator Joe McCarthy. Overlooked was the fact Bobby Kennedy was on his staff and was a ruthless red baiter himself. The fact he ordered surveillance and illegal wire taps on Martin Luther King Jr. and others while attorney general is also ignored.

Likewise ignored is the role of Sirhan Sirhan, who is reduced to little more than a cameo. How much more interesting would it have been to follow him through that horrible day and learn his motivations as he prepared for what is arguably the most terrible act of Arab terrorism on America before 9-11, rather than see the disfigured Helen Hunt shop for shoes?

While I thought Estavez did a decent job directing this movie, and his art director was very good, his writing is way under par. He's no Altman. He's no Paul Haggis either. He's not even an Oliver Stone.  He probably would have been better off writing "Men at Work II".