Starring: Harry Belafonte, Laurence and Anthony Hopkins
Director: Emilio Estevez
Rated: M
BOBBY was presented at the Venice Film Festival last year as a work in progress.
It was very well received by critics and public alike. This led to some editing and a commercial release of the film – and nominations for awards.
The film is a work of devotion from Emilio Estevez.
Estevez was a star in the Brat Pack of the 1980s in such films as The Breakfast Club and St Elmo’s Fire. He moved into directing with films like Wisdom, Men at Work and Rated X.
For some years he researched the life of Bobby Kennedy and focused on the day of his death. He was inspired by his political campaigner father, Martin Sheen.
The film is structured as one day at a hotel in Los Angeles, the Ambassador Hotel. This was the place where, in the kitchen, on that night, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.
There are references to the film Grand Hotel in the screenplay and the film is a version of a Grand Hotel of the 1960s.
The history of the hotel is explained, the focus on a doorman who had received visitors for 40 years (Anthony Hopkins) and other members of the staff (Harry Belafonte).
The film has quite a number of interwoven sub-plots, giving an impression of American society in the 1960s.
Lindsay Lohan portrays a woman who has promised to marry a young man (Elijah Wood) who has been called up to go to Vietnam, so that he will not have to go.
Two young men (Shia Laboeuf and Brian Gerraty) help as volunteers in the Democrats’ campaign but are more interested in scoring some drugs than going out knocking on doors. They encounter a rather way-out, spaced-out, drug dealer (Ashton Kutcher).
In the meantime, Estevez himself portrays the husband and agent of the star singer at the hotel, Demi Moore, and is clashing with her.
She spends some time visiting a hairdresser, played by Sharon Stone, in a very strong performance.
The beautician is married to the manager of the hotel, played by William H. Macy, who is trying to arrange for the Hispanic members of the staff to vote, against the wishes of his staff manager (Christian Slater).
He is also carrying on a hidden affair with a telephonist (Heather Graham).
A wealthy couple from New York visit the hotel (Martin Sheen and Helen Hunt).
Laurence Fishburne is the chef at the hotel – and has the opportunity to make a lot of comments about racial attitudes in 1968, the assassination of Martin Luther King, the interactions between black Americans and Hispanics.
In the kitchen are Freddie Rodriguez as an ambitious young man who wants to be very much an American, in contrast with Jacob Vargas who is critical of the attitudes of whites and blacks. Joshua Jackson is in charge of the campaign.
The film works well in the interactions of the characters as well as the intercutting of the stories.
As for Bobby Kennedy, the prologue indicates the political climate of the 1960s, the role of the Kennedys, the death of Martin Luther King.
During the film there are various excerpts from Kennedy’s speeches playing on television sets which are watched by the various characters.
The film eventually shows the arrival of Kennedy, the formal dinner in his honour, his speech, his departure via the kitchen – and his assassination.
In the work in progress, there is a long speech by Kennedy played over the visuals of the characters reacting to the assassination, the confusion, those who were hurt by bullets.
Emilio Estevez has achieved a considerable work in his focus on America, the ’60s, and the speculation of how American society would have been different had Bobby Kennedy survived and won the 1968 election instead of Richard Nixon.
