http://www.aintitcool.com/node/30729
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with my thoughts on BOBBY. After reading Moriarty and Vern's reviews I guess I'll find myself in the minority here. I really liked the movie. A whole lot.
I don't get the comparisons to CRASH, at least the labeling of the whole movie as being like CRASH, which is I film I didn't hate, but definitely agree lacks any sort of subtly or nuance. Racism is bad, racism is bad, did you hear racism is bad? It's certainly not good, is it?
There are two scenes in BOBBY that I agree have that simplistic way about them, both involving Freddy Rodriguez's character talking to another kitchen employee about how life sucks because they're Mexican and how nobody in 1968 treats them like real citizens. But the second of these scenes is a rather interesting lunch conversation between Rodriguez, Jacob Vargas and Laurence Fishburne. In this conversation, Vargas is the angry minority, Rodriguez is laid back and a kind spirit, and Fishburne has been dealing with working as a minority in a white man's world for decades. His advice is to slip the idea of equality into the white guys' heads, make them think they came up with it, because that's the only way to affect change.
None of the arguments or view points in this discussion are flawless, which makes it so interesting to me, watching these three different people with different ideas clash.
But racism isn't the focus of this film. The film is a love letter to Bobby Kennedy and after listening to a few of his speeches in the movie, seeing the change he was beginning to make, it really does underline the tragedy of his assassination.
The dozen or so people the movie follows are all at the Ambassador hotel the day leading up to Kennedy's assassination and each and every one of them are involved in some way with Kennedy, even though you never see him as a character. The only footage of Bobby in the movie is stock footage taken during that day, real TV addresses he made, etc, in the day of the primary.
The cast list is reason enough to give this movie a shot. William H. Macy, Martin Sheen, Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Heather Graham, Harry Belefonte, Elijah Wood, Lindsay Lohan, Christian Slater, Sharon Stone, Harry Belefonte and Shia LaBeouf to just name the ones that come immediately to mind.
My favorite bits in the film involved Anthony Hopkins and Harry Belefonte playing two old timers who meet up in the lobby and play chess regularly. Hopkins used to man the doors at the hotel and he has a moment where he reflects on the people he opened the front door for, ranging from movie stars to political figures, like Churchill, that was the kind of reflection only Hopkins can have on-screen. Lohan's character is also very interesting, a girl just out of high school marrying a classmate (Elijah Wood) who was drafted to help him dodge Vietnam. The interesting part of their relationship is that there might be more than politics behind the marriage, a true and real love beneath the surface.
You get Christian Slater being a complete dick, but somehow a likable one, William H. Macy being a complete dick, but somehow a likable one, Demi Moore being a *****, but not really likable and Sharon Stone not stinking it up. She's a hairdresser at the salon in the hotel and is married to Macy's manager character. She fully embraces her age in this film, which works very well for her character, a faded bulb that still has some light left in it.
The thing I liked about the movie is it managed to follow a ton of characters that are all interesting and, more importantly, entertaining. There's a hopefulness, a lightness about most of these people, even though the issues they face are darkly serious.
Emilio Estevez only has a few moments that show a weakness and one of those moments is his own casting as Demi Moore's tortured husband, having to put up with his drunk diva wife all the time. That character really isn't interesting and he doesn't bring much to the role, so I can only guess it was a vanity move to put himself in his own movie.
But count me impressed. I hadn't expected to be so entertained... It has that kind of MAGNOLIA feeling, except MAGNOLIA is a fantastic movie and this is just a really, really good movie. So, 2 against, 1 for so far... Let me know what you think in the talkbacks below if you see it this weekend.
