Bobby

Emilio Estevez’s film is Grand Hotel meets The Candidate, wishing it were Nashville. It surveys California primary day at the Ambassador Hotel in LA in 1968, and it is so stuffed with familiar actors that just to list them would take this review beyond its allotted length, starting with Anthony Hopkins and Emilio’s dad, Martin Sheen, and ending with Lindsay Lohan, between stints in rehab. There’s some amusement in seeing who will turn up next, though none of the mini-stories is gripping in itself. How the film works best is as a time capsule, capturing the look and sound of the times, not least in the extended excepts from RFK’s speeches, which were indeed moving and revelatory. I was a Gene McCarthy man at the time, saw Bobby as a ruthless opportunist, but am willing to be swayed a bit by this hagiography. Bobby’s assassination did not hit me the way that MLK’s did at the time, but it was certainly a nail in the coffin of political hope, with more to be added in that dreadful summer. I was more than content to give this film two hours of my time, but not impressed enough to recommend it unless you are a child of ’68 yourself, or in need of a diffuse history lesson. (2006, dvd, n.) *6* (MC-54.)