EMILIO ESTEVEZ - MOVIE REVIEWS: BOBBY

MOVIE REVIEWS: BOBBY

Emilio Estevez's Bobby, which takes place on the day Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, is an ambitious project, critics agree. Some say, too ambitious. Estevez, writes Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel, "deftly weaves historical footage of the boyish, idealistic campaigner, Bobby, with an old-fashioned Love Boat load of Hollywood types. It's not a terrible movie. But the overreaching shows." Kevin Crust in the Los Angeles Times makes the identical point: "It's an ambitious film drenched in sincerity and oozing with nostalgia that, despite the energy provided by its title icon via archival footage, falls flat dramatically in nearly every other way." Chris Vognar in the Dallas Morning News also agrees that Bobby "is more ambitious and earnest than visionary." However, he adds, the film's "guilelessness, and its insistence on telling the stories of regular folks (kitchen workers, campaign volunteers) creates a likable, ground-level feel that compensates for larger flaws." Indeed, A.O. Scott reminds his readers in the New York Times: "Intentions do count for something, and Mr. Estevez's seem to me entirely admirable." And Richard Roeper concludes in the Chicago Sun-Times: "Bobby does a solid job of telling one generation what the world was like in the summer of 1968, and reminding another generation of a time when they believed a politician could change the world."

24/11/2006