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 Bobby 

What grade would you give this film?
A 50%  50%  [ 5 ]
B 10%  10%  [ 1 ]
C 30%  30%  [ 3 ]
D 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
F 10%  10%  [ 1 ]
Total votes : 10

 Bobby 
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Post Bobby
Bobby

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Bobby is a 2006 American drama film written and directed by Emilio Estevez. The screenplay is a fictionalized account of the hours leading up to the June 5, 1968 shooting of United States Senator from New York and former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in the kitchen of The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles following his win in the California Democratic Party primary for the 1968 Presidential Election.


Tue Nov 21, 2006 8:11 am
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BOBBY (2006) - 8/10 (A-)

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Starring: Harry Belafonte, Joy Bryant, Nick Cannon, Emilio Estevez, Laurence Fishburne, Brian Geraghty, Heather Graham, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Hunt, Joshua Jackson, David Krumholtz, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy, Svetlana Metkina, Demi Moore, Freddy Rodriguez, Martin Sheen, Christian Slater, Sharon Stone, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Elijah Wood

Written & Direcfted By: Emilio Estevez

A fascinating and powerful account about the day of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, told through the eyes of writer-director Emilio Estevez and a massive cast made up of many great actors. At first, the recognizable faces make the film feel a bit strange (the first five minutes feature almost every member of the ensemble on display), but as the film delves into each individual's story it finally finds its balance. There is only one storyline that really rings false - featuring Shia LaBeouf and Brian Geraghty as two teens who meet an LSD dealer (Ashton Kutcher) and spend the majority of the film on an acid trip. Kutcher is horrible and the worst of the ensemble, donning a ridiculous wig and coming off as completely laughable. Other than that, each storyline is incredibly involving and the actors are all at the top of their game. It is interesting to note that in a film featuring such recognized thespians as Anthony Hopkins and Laurence Fishburne, the best performances come from unexpected places. Lindsay Lohan is the best as a bride-to-be who is marrying a high school classmate (Elijah Wood) in order to keep him out of the war. Lohan deserves recognition for her subtle yet incredibly effective performance here, and once again proves that despite all the negative publicity surrounding her she is actually quite a talented actress. Demi Moore makes a great comeback here as an alcoholic singer who is in a loveless marriage. Christian Slater also shows his talent once again after a string of disappointments. Playing a seemingly racist employee of the hotel in which the events occur, it is fascinating to watch the character progress and Slater makes the transition completely believable. Sharon Stone, Freddy Rodriguez, Helen Hunt and William H. Macy also deserve recognition for their superb work here. One of the most surprising performances, however, comes from Nick Cannon. After a number of annoying turns in forgettable films, he comes out of nowhere and delivers one of the best male performances of the year - filled with raw emotion and lots of depth. Emilio Estevez has made the film a bit too long, and some of the subplots could have been shortened or excised completely. It is also somewhat biast in the fact that it takes a completely liberal view towards various issues. But the superb work by the great cast and the haunting, tearjerking final 10 minutes make Bobby worth seeing.


Tue Nov 21, 2006 10:08 am
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Sharon Stone and Nick Cannon give career-best performances that deserve accolades. Stone's performance (and makeup) can be compared to Charlize Theron's role in Monster. The rest of the cast ranged from good to merely okay.

The film itself was such a heavy-handed, in-your-face manipulation-fest that it almost works as a cheesy comedy. Crash-haters will hate this movie even more (those who liked Crash won't necessarily like this movie). C.


Tue Nov 21, 2006 3:43 pm
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Left my cynicism at the door and loved this heartfelt, unabashedly liberal drama. A.

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Sat Nov 25, 2006 1:41 am
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Whoa whoa whoa, Nick Cannon is... good?

Would've never dreamed it, heh. Comes from the strangest places.

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Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:04 am
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He's decent, but the best performances come from Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Freddy Rodriguez, and Sharon Stone. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is very good as well, but her time on screen is too limited to leave a spectacular impression.

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Sat Nov 25, 2006 3:35 am
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i left after about 25 minutes. partly cuz what i saw was pretty damn bad, but mostly because i just didnt wanna sit through anything, much less something i was just seeing cuz it happened to be on and otherwise had no desire to watch. but yeah, it starts out badly.


Sun Nov 26, 2006 12:18 am
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Decent but very uneven.

Like...

Some of the acting (especially Sharon Stone) is very good.
Various clever insights
The final 10 minutes are absolutely wonderful.

But a lot of the movie is just...blah. There's no weight to a lot of the characters, and the flimsy running time doesn't support fleshing any of them out. Kind of disappointing.

C+


Sun Nov 26, 2006 12:59 am
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Yeah, I think the centering of a plotline around the loss of classic American ideals that seem to be on the brink of realization is excellent thematic material for a film.

It's just a shame that this film's thematic aims aren't matched by its actual material, which is often vague and unchallenging -- and never completely compelling. For the most part, I only rarely felt like any character actually had something at stake in what was lost that day, which for me created a large sense of aimlessness in the whole endeavor.

The ending is good, yes, but the connections between characters shouldn't have to be physical for us to feel that they are, indeed, connected by those ideals for which they strove.

B-


Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:37 am
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alex young wrote:
Sharon Stone and Nick Cannon give career-best performances that deserve accolades. Stone's performance (and makeup) can be compared to Charlize Theron's role in Monster. The rest of the cast ranged from good to merely okay.

The film itself was such a heavy-handed, in-your-face manipulation-fest that it almost works as a cheesy comedy. Crash-haters will hate this movie even more (those who liked Crash won't necessarily like this movie). C.


Nick Cannon did do a good job, I agree. His story was one of the exceptions where I felt like his character had been written with reason enough to truly lament Kennedy's death.

I also think Sharon Stone was good, but nothing great, in my opinion.


Fri Dec 22, 2006 3:40 am
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C


It's a well-meant movie, but ultimately it just strives for way too much and achieves way too little. Its scope is just too big for its own good, trying to incorporate and tie together too many storylines. Some of them are good, others are not. I liked the Czech reporter as well as Sharon Stone (who definitely delivered the single best performance in this whole film) and Freddy Rodriguez. Anthony Hopkins got a lot of screentime, yet his story just didn't seem necessary in the whole context. Laurence Fishburne is equally wasted. Demi Moore, on the other hand, is decent in her short appearance, but definitely needed more time to develop her character into something more interesting.

As I said, there are simply too many stars on small space here with not enough room for most of them to develop in any way. I, for instance, though that Christian Slater's character was quite interesting, yet he was barely given anything to do in the film. In the end, there might be a good concept somewhere underneath the whole star baggage, but it got lost there.

What works terrificly is the movie's final 10-15 minutes. Just splendid with the speech in the background and showing all the characters. If the rest of the movie had been half as good, I'd have caled it a big success. Sadly, it wasn't. So it remains as a very ambitious failure, but at the end of the day, a failure.

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Sat Feb 02, 2008 3:21 pm
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Post Re: Bobby
I thought about this movie a bit more today and kept realizing how much lost potential it was. I mean, cut one or two of the storylines, make the whole thing 30 minutes longer to flesh it out and it'd certainly have been a very solid movie, even if not a masterpiece. Now it's just a well-meant mess with a wonderful ending.

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