Movie review: "Bobby"

This film is a tribute to Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated by a madman on June 5, 1968, just when he looked set to win the presidency and reform America for the better. It took Emilio Estevez seven years to make, but he got it right.

Rather than attempting to recreate history, "Bobby" places 22 fictional characters in LA’s Ambassador Hotel on the night of the shooting and shows how it affects their lives. The casting is beyond impressive, with the actors working not for big bucks but because they believe.

Lindsay Lohan is a teenager marrying a boy she hardly knows (Elijah Wood), against her family’s wishes, so the army will send him to Germany not Vietnam. Styling her up for the wedding’s Sharon Stone, in an Oscar-worthy turn as a motherly, mistreated beautician.

Her hubby William H. Macy is the hotel manager, whose tough standards don’t apply to his own affair with switchboard girl Heather Graham. Then there’s the doorman too devoted to retire (Anthony Hopkins), the alcoholic lounge singer (Demi Moore), the hippie drug dealer (Ashton Kutcher), the philosophical chef (Laurence Fishburne)...

No-one portrays RFK – he appears only in news footage. Whether this was done out of respect or the belief he should be allowed to speak for himself, it works. His passionate pleas for social equality and an end to poverty and war live on.

[Australian cinema release date: February 22, 2007]