Following the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the U.S. into WWII, FDR labeled December 7, 1941 as a date that would live in infamy. One could certainly add September 11, 2001 as another such significant date that will probably forever be etched into the public's psyche.
Yet, other pivotal moments -- while perhaps not on the level of those events but nevertheless significant -- have already started to slip away, especially within younger generations who obviously weren't around to experience their aftermath. Some of the notable for baby boomers are November 22, 1963, April 4, 1968, and June 6, 1968. Those are the respective dates of the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.
All were equally tragic, but it was the latter that symbolically ended both the dreams of a second coming of Camelot in the White House as well as what many saw as the last great hope of a decent and idealistic voice for the 1960s and the generation that roiled the status quo establishment.
While watching "Bobby," writer/director Emilio Estevez's long-gestated drama about that sad day, you can't help but get the sense of just that. Yet, rather than having an actor portray the political icon, the filmmaker has gone "The Queen" route by using archival footage of the real man (just as that film did with Princess Di), both on that day when he was en route to winning the California democratic primary as well as from other periods of his life and campaign.
The rest -- which makes up the vast majority of the film -- is what can be best called (the now late) Robert Altman meeting some all-star disaster film from the 1970s. The first is due to the large number of characters and their overlapping storylines, while the latter comes from the feel that we're being introduced to their one-note stories before the big event occurs and affects all of them.
Instead of an earthquake, burning high-rise, or boat upset by some tidal wave, however, it's Sirhan Sirhan suddenly opening fire on RFK in the kitchen of the now demolished Ambassador Hotel (the film was shot there before its demise). That moment is certainly riveting, even when we know it's coming -- much like the events in "United 93" -- and Estevez prefaces it with Simon & Garfunkle's "Sounds of Silence, followed by one of Kennedy's most riveting speeches that's as timely today as it was nearly forty years ago.
It's a powerful conclusion to an otherwise mediocre film filled with far too many characters and subplots that collectively serve to rob any and all of them of the chance to develop and/or stand out from the bunch. It isn't hard to see that the filmmaker is striving to portray a microcosm of the era through all of them. Even so, each such moment never really turns into a full-fledged story (unlike what did occur in the less populated "Babel").
There's the storyline about racism faced by the Mexican immigrant characters played by Freddy Rodriguez and Jacob Vargas at the hands of their supervisor (Christian Slater) who's trying his best to "keep the man down." Lindsay Lohan and Elijah Wood appear in another about young couples marrying just to keep the grooms from having to serve in Vietnam (if married, the farthest they went was Germany). There are also bits about affairs, the detrimental effects of middle-age on women, how men react to feeling useless and antsy due to retirement, drug experimentation, and, of course, 1960s era politics.
Estevez tries to balance all of that with the events leading up to RFK's arrival at the hotel and the subsequent tragedy, but there's simply too much material and not enough time to devote to all of it. That said, the all-star cast generally deliver decent performances (some better, more engaging and interesting than the others). And they certainly keep one interested, mainly in wondering who will show up next as well as how Estevez (not exactly an A-lister) managed to get all of them to appear (reportedly just for scale pay) in his film (the fact that his dad, Martin Sheen who also plays a character in the film, is politically active might have had something to do with it).
It's just too bad that all of those characters and their various stories don't possess the same emotional punch and impact as the doomed politician's passionate, end of the film speech (in voice-over) that helps make the rest feel more substantial than it really is. "Bobby" rates as a 5.5 out of 10.
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