Bobby (2006 film)

Last updated
Bobby
Bobby poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Emilio Estevez
Written byEmilio Estevez
Produced by
  • Edward Bass
  • Holly Wiersma
  • Michel Litvak
Starring See Cast
Cinematography Michael Barrett
Edited by Richard Chew
Music by Mark Isham
Production
company
Distributed by
Release dates
  • September 14, 2006 (2006-09-14)(TIFF)
  • November 17, 2006 (2006-11-17)(United States)
Running time
116 minutes [2]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$14 million [3]
Box office$20.7 million [4]

Bobby is a 2006 American drama film written and directed by Emilio Estevez, and starring an ensemble cast featuring Harry Belafonte, Joy Bryant, Nick Cannon, Laurence Fishburne, Spencer Garrett, Helen Hunt, Joshua Jackson, Anthony Hopkins, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, Christian Slater, Sharon Stone, Freddy Rodriguez, Heather Graham, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Elijah Wood, and Estevez. The screenplay is a fictionalized account of the hours leading up to the June 5, 1968, shooting of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles following his win of the 1968 Democratic presidential primary in California.

Contents

Plot synopsis

The film recreates the ambiance of the era and invokes the hopes inspired by Kennedy through the use of actual broadcast and newsfilm footage of the senator intercut with dramatic sequences involving mostly fictional characters. It uses an ensemble plot device similar to that employed in the 1932 film Grand Hotel , and by Robert Altman in Nashville .

The characters include John Casey, a retired hotel doorman who spends his days in the lobby playing chess with his friend Nelson; Diane, who is marrying her friend William with the hope his marital status will get him deployed to a military base in Germany rather than the battlefields of Vietnam when his tour of duty begins; Virginia Fallon, an alcoholic singer whose career is on the downswing, her put-upon husband/manager Tim, and her agent Phil; Miriam Ebbers, a beautician who works in the hotel salon, and her husband Paul, the hotel manager, who is having an affair with switchboard operator Angela; food and beverage manager Daryl Timmons, whose racist attitude gets him fired; African American sous chef Edward Robinson and Mexican American busboys José and Miguel; hotel coffee shop waitress Susan; Jimmy and Cooper, Kennedy campaign volunteers who are sidetracked by an acid trip they take with the help of drug dealer Fisher; married socialites and campaign donors Samantha and Jack; campaign manager Wade and staffer Dwayne, who is in love with Angela's colleague, Patricia; and Czechoslovakian reporter Lenka Janáčková, who is determined to get an interview with Kennedy.

At the end of the film, Kennedy is shot after giving his acceptance speech. A man named Sirhan Sirhan would be convicted of the assassination. After being shot, Kennedy is cradled and protected by Jose until help arrives. As Kennedy's speech "On the Mindless Menace of Violence", delivered in 1968 to the City Club of Cleveland, Ohio, is played over the aftermath, it is revealed that Samantha, Daryl, Cooper, Jimmy and William are among those injured by Sirhan's wild firing. Sirhan is apprehended, while Kennedy is rushed into an ambulance (as are the others eventually), and everyone else is moved by the events that have just occurred. Closing titles reveal that Kennedy died of his injuries the following morning with his wife Ethel at his side, and the other victims of the shooting survived.

Cast

Production

Development

In Bobby: The Making of an American Epic, screenwriter/director Emilio Estevez discusses the problems he had developing his script. Suffering from writer's block, he checked into a motel in Pismo Beach where he hoped, free from interruption, he could make some headway with his writing. While talking to the woman working at the front desk, he discovered she had been in the Ambassador Hotel on the evening Kennedy was shot, and later married two young men to help them avoid the draft. Estevez used her experience to mold the character of Diane, and the rest of the story fell into place.

The five other characters "shot" in the assassination scene do not coincide with the five actual victimsWilliam Weisel of ABC News, Paul Schrade of the United Auto Workers union, Democratic Party activist Elizabeth Evans, Ira Goldstein of the Continental News Service and 17-year-old Kennedy campaign volunteer Irwin Stroll. [5] The only other character based on a real person is busboy José, who represents Juan Romero, the young man who was photographed cradling Kennedy's body immediately after he was shot. The character of José has tickets to the Los Angeles Dodgers game in which Don Drysdale is expected to set the record of six consecutive shutouts, but is obliged to work a double shift, forcing him to miss the game. Drysdale did, in fact, achieve his sixth shutout on June 4, 1968, and was congratulated by Kennedy during the victory speech Kennedy delivered just before being shot. [6]

Music

The film score was composed by Mark Isham, with "Never Gonna Break My Faith" written by Bryan Adams and performed by Aretha Franklin, Mary J. Blige, and the Boys Choir of Harlem, which was played during the closing credits. Also, a newly recorded version of "Louie Louie" was performed in character by Demi Moore for the film.

Songs heard throughout the film consist of a music compilation from the 1960s, including "The Tracks of My Tears" by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, "I Was Made to Love Her" by Stevie Wonder, "Ain't That Peculiar" by Marvin Gaye, an original acoustic version of "The Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel, "Anji" covered by Jason Huxley, "Come See About Me" by The Supremes, "There's a Kind of Hush" by Herman's Hermits, "Black Is Black" by Los Bravos, "Season of the Witch" and "Hurdy Gurdy Man" by Donovan, "Wives and Lovers" by Jack Jones, "Magic Moments" by Perry Como, "Pata Pata" by Miriam Makeba and "Initials" from the musical Hair .

The soundtrack album Bobby features The Supremes, Shorty Long, Hugh Masekela, The Moody Blues and Los Bravos. [7]

Release

Christian Slater - who played Daryl Timmons in the film - at TIFF for Bobby's North American debut. Christian Slater at the premiere of Bobby, Toronto Film Festival 2006.jpg
Christian Slater - who played Daryl Timmons in the film - at TIFF for Bobby's North American debut.

After an initial premiere at the NUIG Student Cinema at the National University of Ireland, Galway, the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was shown at the Deauville Film Festival, the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, the Vienna International Film Festival, the London Film Festival, and AFI Fest before going into limited release in the US on November 17, 2006, and a wide release in the subsequent week.[ citation needed ] Playing on two screens, it grossed $69,039 during its opening weekend. It eventually earned $11,242,801 in North America and $9,461,790 in other territories for a worldwide box office of $20,704,591. [4]

Reception

As of April 2021, Bobby has an approval rating of 46% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 176 reviews, with an average score of 5.6/10. The consensus states, "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." [8] The film also has a score of 54 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 31 critics, indicating mixed or average reviews. [9] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average score of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. [10]

A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that despite the director's "large and honorable task" and "entirely admirable" intentions, "The actors seem more like 'very special guest stars' than like real, 1968-vintage Americans ... Some of the stories feel too obviously melodramatic, while others are vague to the point of inscrutability. In the Vietnam- and drug-related plots, the point is hammered home too hard ... while other narratives wind toward no discernible point at all. Nonetheless the ambition behind Bobby is large and serious." [11]

Kevin Crust of the Los Angeles Times called it "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. It aspires for the Altmanesque interplay of Nashville or Short Cuts but instead feels like one of those '70s disaster epics such as Earthquake or The Towering Inferno , in which a star-studded cast endures melodramatic story lines as the audience awaits the inevitable momentous event and tries to guess who will be around at the finish ... It's easy to become swept up in the palpable enthusiasm Estevez shows toward his subject, but the pedestrian and overly expositional dialogue of the film's characters proves to be as stifling as the excerpts from Kennedy's speeches are stirring." [12]

Deborah Young of Variety said of Estevez, "Stepping up as writer and director in a way he never has before, [he] successfully pulls together a complexly designed narrative", and added the film "carries an eerie topicality that makes many of its insights instantly click." [13] Armond White of New York Press wrote that the film "has a humane sweetness", and that it "literally and vividly unites different ethnic groups, labor strata and social castes" in a way that "is not schematic—its exactitude and believability has a Tocquevillian brilliance." [14]

Steve Persall of the St. Petersburg Times graded the film C, calling it "a misguided jumble of too much fiction, few facts and zero speculation" and Estevez "a mediocre filmmaker". [15] Michael Medved, who was in the Ambassador ballroom (20 feet from the podium) the night Kennedy was shot, awarded the film three out of four stars and called it "intriguing but imperfect". He added, "Emilio Estevez gets most of the feelings of the occasion right. But, the melodramatic, multi-character format proves somewhat uneven and distracting." [16]

Richard Roeper said, "Estevez writes and directs with lots of passion, not so much subtlety ... [He] wants the movie to be on the level of a Robert Altman film like Nashville but falls short." [17] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film one star and called it "trite fiction" and a work of "insipid ineptitude". He ranked it among the worst films of 2006, as did Lou Lumerick of the New York Post , who dubbed it an "ambitious, but utterly wrong-headed trivialization." [18]

Awards and nominations

AwardNomineeStatus
ALMA Award for Outstanding Motion PictureBobbyNominated
ALMA Award for Outstanding DirectorNominated
ALMA Award for Outstanding ScreenplayNominated
Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast Nominated
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture — Drama Nominated
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song "Never Gonna Break My Faith" by Bryan Adams, Eliot Kennedy, and Andrea RemandaNominated
Hollywood Film Festival Award for Best Ensemble CastBobbyWon
Hollywood Film Festival Award for Best Breakthrough ActressLindsay LohanWon
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture Harry BelafonteNominated
Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Breakout Performance of the Year — DirectorBobbyWon
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Nominated
Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actress — DramaLindsay LohanNominated
Venice Film Festival Biografilm AwardEmilio EstevezWon
Venice Film Festival Golden LionNominated

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Sheen</span> American actor (born 1940)

Ramón Gerard Antonio Estévez, known professionally as Martin Sheen, is an American actor. In a career spanning six decades he has received numerous accolades including three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards.

The Brat Pack is a nickname given to a group of young actors who frequently appeared together in teen-oriented coming-of-age films in the 1980s. The term "Brat Pack", a play on the Rat Pack from the 1950s and 1960s, was first popularized in a 1985 New York magazine cover story, which described a group of highly successful film stars in their early twenties. David Blum wrote the article after witnessing several young actors being mobbed by groupies at Los Angeles' Hard Rock Cafe. The group has been characterized by the partying of members such as Demi Moore, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, and Judd Nelson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emilio Estevez</span> American actor, director, and writer (born 1962)

Emilio Estevez is an American actor and filmmaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ambassador Hotel (Los Angeles)</span> Former hotel in Los Angeles, California

The Ambassador Hotel was a hotel in Los Angeles, California. Designed by architect Myron Hunt, the hotel formally opened to the public on January 1, 1921. Later renovations by architect Paul Williams were made to the hotel in the late 1940s. It was also home to the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, a premier Los Angeles night spot for decades; and host to six Oscar ceremonies and to every United States president from Herbert Hoover to Richard Nixon. Prominent figures in the entertainment community visited and/or performed at the Cocoanut Grove.

<i>Young Guns II</i> 1990 film by Geoff Murphy

Young Guns II is a 1990 American Western action film and a sequel to Young Guns (1988). It stars Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Christian Slater, and features William Petersen as Pat Garrett. It was written by John Fusco and directed by Geoff Murphy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosey Grier</span> American football player, actor writer (born 1932)

Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier is an American former football player, bodyguard, actor, singer, Protestant minister, and motivational speaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kennedy curse</span> Premature deaths and calamities for Kennedy family

The Kennedy curse is a series of deaths, accidents, assassinations, and other calamities involving members of the American Kennedy family. The alleged curse has primarily struck the descendants of businessman Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., but it has also affected family friends, associates, and other relatives. Political assassinations and plane crashes have been the most common manifestations of the "curse". Following the Chappaquiddick incident in 1969, Ted Kennedy is quoted saying he questioned if "some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys." However skeptics argue that it is not improbable for a large extended family to experience similar events over the course of several generations.

<i>Judgment Night</i> (film) 1993 film by Stephen Hopkins

Judgment Night is a 1993 American action film directed by Stephen Hopkins. Emilio Estevez, Cuba Gooding Jr., Jeremy Piven and Stephen Dorff star as a group of friends on the run from a gang of drug dealers after they witness a murder.

<i>That Was Then... This Is Now</i> 1985 film by Christopher Cain

That Was Then... This Is Now is a 1985 American drama film based on the novel of the same name by S. E. Hinton. The film was directed by Christopher Cain, distributed by Paramount Pictures, and stars Emilio Estevez and Craig Sheffer.

<i>Wisdom</i> (film) 1986 film by Robert Wise, Emilio Estevez

Wisdom is a 1986 American romantic crime film written and directed by its star Emilio Estevez in his filmmaking debut. The film also stars Demi Moore, along with Tom Skerritt and Veronica Cartwright as Estevez's parents. The ending credits song is "Home Again" by Oingo Boingo and the score by Danny Elfman.

<i>RFK Must Die</i> 2007 British film

RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy is a 2007 investigative documentary by Irish writer and filmmaker Shane O'Sullivan. The film expands on O'Sullivan's earlier reports for BBC Newsnight and The Guardian and explores conspiracy theories related to the assassination of United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy on 5 June 1968. The title comes from a page of "free writing" found in assassin Sirhan Sirhan's notebook after the shooting upon which Sirhan had written "R.F.K. must die - RFK must be killed Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated... before June 5 '68."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy</span> 1968 murder in Los Angeles, California

On June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, and pronounced dead the following day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sirhan Sirhan</span> Assassin of Robert F. Kennedy (born 1944)

Sirhan Bishara Sirhan is a Palestinian-Jordanian man who assassinated Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a younger brother of American president John F. Kennedy and a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 1968 United States presidential election, on June 5, 1968. Kennedy died the next day at the Good Samaritan Hospital of Los Angeles. The circumstances surrounding the attack, which took place five years after John's assassination, have led to numerous conspiracy theories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories</span>

There are several non-standard accounts of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, which took place shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles, California. Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel, during celebrations following his successful campaign in California's primary elections as a leading 1968 Democratic presidential candidate; he died the following day at Good Samaritan Hospital.

Robert F. Kennedy visited the British Mandate of Palestine in 1948, one month before Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Twenty-two years old at the time, he was reporting on the tense situation in the region for The Boston Post. During his stay, he grew to admire the Jewish inhabitants of the area. He later became a strong supporter of Israel; this was later cited as Sirhan Sirhan's alleged motivation for assassinating him on the first anniversary of the start of the Six-Day War on June 5, 1968. Sirhan happened to see a documentary about Kennedy in Palestine in 1948. Later in his murder trial, Sirhan Sirhan testified: "I hoped he will win Presidency until that moment. But when I saw, heard, he was supporting Israel, sir, not in 1968, but he was supporting, it from all the way from its inception in 1948, sir ..." Author Robert Blair Kaiser points out a discrepancy in the timing of Sirhan's decision. In Sirhan's diary, the entry in which he decided to kill Robert Kennedy was made on May 18. The documentary in question was first shown on TV in the Los Angeles area on May 20. When asked to explain, Sirhan said that he did not recall writing the journal.

<i>The Way</i> (2010 film) 2010 film directed by Emilio Estevez

The Way is a 2010 drama film directed, produced and written by Emilio Estevez and starring Martin Sheen, Deborah Kara Unger, James Nesbitt, and Yorick van Wageningen. In it, Martin Sheen's character walks the Camino de Santiago, a traditional pilgrimage route in France, Portugal and Spain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evan Freed</span> American lawyer

Evan Phillip Freed is an attorney and freelance photographer who traveled with and photographed the presidential campaign of United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Freed was present when Sirhan Sirhan shot Kennedy.

<i>The Killing of America</i> 1981 mondo film by Sheldon Renan and Leonard Schrader

The Killing of America is a 1981 Japanese–American documentary and mondo film directed by Sheldon Renan and Leonard Schrader. The film was premiered in New York City in February 1982 and was shown at the 2013 Fantasia Festival.

<i>The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress</i> 2011 novel by Beryl Bainbridge

The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress is the last novel by writer Beryl Bainbridge published in 2011 following her death. As explained in the postscript:

Beryl Bainbridge was in the process of finishing The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress when she died on 2 July 2010. Her long-time friend and editor, Brendan King prepared the text for publication from her working manuscript, taking into account suggestions Beryl made at the end of her life. No additional material has been included.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Schrade</span> American union leader (1924–2022)

Paul Schrade was an American trade union activist. While vice president of the United Auto Workers, he was shot in the head during the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Schrade believed that while he was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, Kennedy was shot by a second gunman. He spoke in favor of granting Sirhan parole in 2021.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Bobby". American Film Institute . Retrieved October 25, 2016.
  2. "BOBBY (15)". British Board of Film Classification . 2007-01-08. Retrieved 2013-04-19.
  3. "Bobby (2006)". The Numbers . Retrieved October 25, 2016.
  4. 1 2 "Bobby". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved October 25, 2016.
  5. "A Life On The Way To Death". Time . 1968-06-14. Archived from the original on May 1, 2008. Retrieved 2018-01-05.
  6. "Don Drysdale at". baseballbiography.com. Retrieved 2013-02-28.
  7. "Bobby Soundtrack (2006)". Soundtrack.net. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  8. "Bobby". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 4 April 2021.
  9. "Bobby". Metacritic.com. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  10. "Home". CinemaScore. Retrieved 2022-11-29.
  11. Scott, A. O. (17 November 2006). "Bobby - Review - Movies". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  12. Makinen, Julie. "Los Angeles Times' review". Calendarlive.com. Retrieved 2013-02-28.
  13. "Review of Bobby - Variety.com". 12 April 2008. Archived from the original on 12 April 2008. Retrieved 10 September 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  14. Healing with Hope, Armond White, New York Press, December 6, 2006
  15. Persall, Steve (November 22, 2006). "'Bobby' is a misnomer". St. Petersburg Times . Archived from the original on January 9, 2008. Retrieved 2013-02-28.
  16. [ permanent dead link ]
  17. "At the Movies". Archive.is. 24 September 2008. Archived from the original on 24 September 2008. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  18. "Bobby". Rolling Stone . Archived from the original on 2008-10-06. Retrieved 2013-02-28.