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Movies / On DVD / Bobby
Bobby

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Bobby (2006)

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Reviews Counted:38

Fresh:18

Rotten:20

Average Rating:5.6/10

Consensus: Despite best intentions from director Emilio Estevez and his ensemble cast, they succumb to a script filled with pointless subplots and awkward moments working too hard to parallel contemporary times.

Runtime: 2 hrs

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:Nov 17, 2006 Limited

Box Office: $11,098,707

Synopsis: An ambitious labor of love from writer/director/star Emilio Estevez, BOBBY attempts to distill the hope, anger, and confusion that gripped the U.S. in the late 1960s. With the civil rights movement... An ambitious labor of love from writer/director/star Emilio Estevez, BOBBY attempts to distill the hope, anger, and confusion that gripped the U.S. in the late 1960s. With the civil rights movement still reeling from the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the country embroiled in the confusion of Vietnam, Senator Robert F. Kennedy's campaign preached a message of peace and tolerance. In a style similar to the sprawling works of Robert Altman or Paul Thomas Anderson, Estevez uses the June 4th, 1969, assassination of Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles as the means to take a snapshot of the problems facing the country as the 1960's came to an end. The hotel is a microcosm of class and race, with characters bouncing off each other until the violent conclusion. African-American head chef Edward (Laurence Fishburne) presides over a kitchen staffed primarily by Mexican Americans who are the victims of the racist restaurant manager, Timmons (Christian Slater). Timmons is reprimanded by hotel manager Paul Ebbers (William H. Macy), who is having an affair with a switchboard operator (Heather Graham) behind the back of his beautician wife (Sharon Stone). Meanwhile, a young Diane (Lindsay Lohan) prepares to marry her classmate, William (Elijah Wood), in order to save him from going to Vietnam, and two collegiate campaigners for Senator Kennedy remove their ties to take their first LSD trip, courtesy of a resident hippie drug dealer (Ashton Kutcher). Though the sheer volume of characters--and celebrities portraying them--is often overwhelming, Estevez is deft at making each plot thread convincing and involving. Though BOBBY is not a biopic and will in no way be mistaken for the definitive statement on the man or his life and times, it is thoroughly adept at distilling both his message and the time in which he fought to deliver it. [More]

Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Elijah Wood

Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Elijah Wood, Harry Belafonte, Nick Cannon, Emilio Estevez, Laurence Fishburne, Heather Graham, Helen Hunt, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, William H. Macy

Director: Emilio Estevez

Director: Emilio Estevez
Producer: Ed Bass, Holly Wiersma
Composer: Mark Isham
Studio: Weinstein Company

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Release:

Apr 10, 2007

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Reviews for Bobby

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Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | comment Comment
05/12/07
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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For all his good intentions, Mr. Estevez has reduced history to a bad melodrama in which nothing much happens until a crazed assassin (of whom we catch only a fleeting prior glimpse) supposedly destroys the last great hope of a liberal renaissance.

Full Review Source: New York Observer | comment Comment
12/06/06
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
New York Observer
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Ham-handed and TV-movie flat, it states the obvious, then states it again and again and again.

Full Review Source: Boston Globe | comment Comment
11/25/06
Ty Burr
Ty Burr
Boston Globe
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It's this disconnect between historical reality and dramatic indulgence that keeps an otherwise worthy film from being completely satisfying. There are moments, though, where even the most hardened cynic may have to wipe away tears of regret and loss.

Full Review Source: Toronto Star | comment Comment
11/24/06
Peter Howell
Peter Howell
Toronto Star
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A lot of quick, character-defining cameos, which makes the movie play out like a pilot for a sprawling prime-time television show.

Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | comment Comment
11/24/06
Liam Lacey
Liam Lacey
Globe and Mail
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It's little more than a collection of half-glimpsed lives.

Full Review Source: Denver Rocky Mountain News | comment Comment
11/24/06
Robert Denerstein
Robert Denerstein
Denver Rocky Mountain News
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A compelling film of tender moral decency that boasts a number of moments not to be shrugged off.

Full Review Source: Denver Post | comment Comment
11/24/06
Lisa Kennedy
Lisa Kennedy
Denver Post
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So keenly felt and so deeply imagined I couldn't help but be moved, even grateful for its bleeding-heart nostalgia -- which winds up feeling rather up-to-date.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
11/24/06
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
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Ambitious, uneven and deeply affecting drama.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
11/23/06
Ann Hornaday
Ann Hornaday
Washington Post
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With one film, Estevez has transformed himself from a middle-aged joke into a youthful auteur who has made something beautiful, something he can be proud of, one of the best films of 2006.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
11/23/06
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle
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With so much brandishing of name actors in small roles, Bobby feels like a '70s disaster flick, with the disaster in the final minutes. While waiting, viewers must content themselves with playing spot-the-star.

Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | comment Comment
11/23/06
Bruce Westbrook
Bruce Westbrook
Houston Chronicle
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Always engaging, rarely revelatory, Bobby earns credit for its convictions and its ability to dramatize those convictions in the context of a man who embodied them.

Full Review Source: Dallas Morning News | comment Comment
11/23/06
Chris Vognar
Chris Vognar
Dallas Morning News
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What little plot Bobby has is overshadowed by the star spotting.

Full Review Source: Arizona Republic | comment Comment
11/23/06
Bill Muller
Bill Muller
Arizona Republic
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An earnest and altogether silly piece of conjectural melodrama.

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer | comment Comment
11/22/06
Steven Rea
Steven Rea
Philadelphia Inquirer
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The most interesting person in this maze of a movie is by far the title character. And his absence leaves an inescapable void.

Full Review Source: Detroit News | comment Comment
11/22/06
Tom Long
Tom Long
Detroit News
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If Bobby causes us to stop and compare what might have been to the leadership we currently have, one suspects Estevez would not mind at all.

Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press | comment Comment
11/22/06
Terry Lawson
Terry Lawson
Detroit Free Press
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A daring, messy and strangely rewarding patchwork that's straining at the seams.

Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | comment Comment
11/22/06
Jessica Reaves
Jessica Reaves
Chicago Tribune
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All the actors get their Big Moments, but verisimilitude goes out the window.

Full Review Source: Newsweek | comment Comment
11/21/06
David Ansen
David Ansen
Newsweek
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There are important movies and engrossing movies, but it's not often that both terms apply to the same movie. Bobby, which opens Thursday, is a fictionalized account of the day Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, and it's one of the exceptions.

Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | comment Comment
11/21/06
Jeff Strickler
Jeff Strickler
Minneapolis Star Tribune
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Despite the clunkiness, Estevez's commitment to his father's generation's idealism (and its murder) commands respect.

Full Review Source: New York Magazine | comment Comment
11/20/06
David Edelstein
David Edelstein
New York Magazine
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