For those of us who follow cinema, or those who watch Oprah (she had her special on the film, yesterday), we would know that Emilio Esteves' "Bobby" is the current water cooler topic in the States, and no doubt will be, here, when it hits Australian cinemas, this February.  Estevez is the third, once outsider, member of the Holy Trinity of the Sheens: a pop-culture, left-wing American Dynasty. Father, Martin Sheen, is the Democrat president of ABC's The West Wing; brother Charlie recently caused a storm in America, by being the celebrity face of the 9-11 conspiracy theory; and now, Emilio (who shunned the Sheen identity because, goddammit, he wanted to make it because he is a talented entity in his own right, and not because he was born into the business) has gone from being brat-packer of the 80's, to first-time feature film director. He has chosen to tell the story of the assassination of Robert Kennedy, a left-wing hero of compassionate politics, who, in 1968, was on the verge of taking control of America, when one crazy little right-wing nutter with a gun decided to stop him. Estevez has drawn on the story of the president who won the hearts and minds of a people by opposing an unpopular and senseless war, who preached tolerance and compassion towards ethnic and spiritual diversity, and who opposed the destruction of the environment at the hands of Western capitalism, for the not so subtle purpose of making a political statement rooted very much in the here and now. Emilio can't see a better time when the world should remember not only the words and wisdom of this great would-be leader, but so too the hope and compassion he inspired in his people; and I agree. Bobby is a film that has the potential to make a great impact on mainstream society, and every Jo and Mary Blogs should run, not walk, to their nearest cinema and see it.

It also happens to be one of the worst films I have seen, in recent memory. 

 

This is the problem I face, sitting here, my fingers deciding what to tell you about the film I was, mere hours ago, eagerly ready to plug to anyone within earshot. I sat down with an unprecedented level of bias. And yet, I still hated almost every second of it. To be honest, part of me saw actually seeing the film as some sort of irritating necessity in order to validate writing an article telling you all how you must simply download it at once. I was so excited! Someone had made a wonderful left-wing film that was penetrating the mainstream, and was not only inspiring compassion and political hope, but aligning left-wing ideals with patriotism. I was going to watch it, and write about it, and the world would be - even if just a tiny bit - better off for it.

Fifteen minutes in, the grin across my face slowly started to drop into something more bemused. I wasn't utterly deluded - I was quite aware that this was going to be over-the-top American Film-Making™, and that there were going to be more than a few cliches, and bad, Poignant™ music throughout all, and Heart-Wrenching™ monologues where I almost expected the screen to freeze, and for the audience at the Academy Awards to start clapping the tres Moving™ performances. I knew there'd be a lot of 60's music, and retro hair. Actually, I expected a kind of politicised Forrest Gump.

Instead, I found myself recalling the first year of my screenwriting classes when I was 18. I wrote many screenplays that I thought, at the time, were immensely clever, when in fact, they were trite as hell. Instead of character and plot development, my imaginary people would suddenly do things that didn't actually have any prior progression towards the point of action, and they would all talk in contrived, wooden dialogue. Most notably, I would create a metaphor - something that symbolised what I was (cringe) "trying to say", and I would find this metaphor so clever, I would drag it on, and on, and on, because hey, aren't I clever? Do you get it? Do ya'? Huh?

Yes, Emilio, we get it. And no, it's not anywhere near as clever as you think it is.

A few years before my uni writing degree, I first came across the lesson of the metaphor in my high-school English class, where we were taught the poem, "The sea is a shaggy dog". Only when we understood that the Sea is not like a shaggy dog (a simile) but "is" a shaggy dog, did we truly grasp the creative splendour of metaphoric analogy. In Bobby, the sea isn't a shaggy dog; but racial harmony is baking a cake, and wearing fashionable shoes that are painful to walk in is the very duplicity of woman's need to suppress emotional reality for the sake of social appearance. Oooooh, Emilio, that's so... Clever™.

But it's smarter than most of the other elements (and ultimately, problems) of this disastrously amateur debut from Estevez. There's so much I could say; I find myself worried that I may end up rambling along in a fragmented mess, led by the end goal of what I'm trying to say, but so obsessed by that one thought, I am left unable to say it with any coherence, or structure, or substance. But, then again, perhaps that would be the perfect metaphor for the experience of Bobby (see, Emilio? I'm Clever™, too!). In a nutshell, we are introduced to a vast array of characters (far too many, really), who are all initially cemented in their painfully obvious functions to act as different left-wing Issues™, and who then go nowhere - very slowly - for almost two hours of painful metaphors and transparent faux-profound monologues (that sound too much like speeches at fund-raisers and not enough like human dialogue), until they suddenly all fall victim to empty, happy Hollywood endings that haven't in any way been foreshadowed by anything other than a transition from their politically driven speeches to momentary scenes that could have leapt out of a day-time soap opera. Bobby Kennedy gets shot, and all the happy Hollywood endings turn to tears. The end.

The premise seemed - however stolen from Altman's Nashville - a clever idea (okay, he had one - and as I said, it was lifted). Instead of telling the story of the actual man, Bobby Kennedy, the film spends a day in the life of the Ambassador Hotel, where an array of different characters go about their day, unaware that come the end of it, Bobby Kennedy will be gunned down before their eyes. There's the illegal immigrants who are overworked in the kitchen by a racist boss (Issue No. 1™). There's the young girl marrying a schoolmate, not because she loves him, but because it's the only way to stop him being sent to his possible death in Vietnam (Issue No. 3™). There's the apathy of the two young campaign volunteers who, whilst having the best intentions, instead of spending the day doing their bit by rounding support through public door-knocking, fall into the hands of a 60's hippy drug-dealer, and waste the day too drugged out on pot and LSD to affect the election (Issue No. 4™). There's the aging female pop star, who fame now threatens to abandon as her looks decrease in an ageist society that values women as young sex objects, driving her to the bottom of a bottle (Issue no. 5™). There's the hotel hair-dresser, who is married to the manager of the establishment - a kind man, but a man who cheats on his wife with the much younger employee (Issue no. 5.5™). There's the black kitchen chef who, unlike the Latino workers, has embraced his ethnic submission in order to succeed the best he can (Issue no. 6™), the black hotel receptionist (Issue no. 6.5™), and the black campaign assistant who is disillusioned after the recent death of Luther King, and who now places his last hope in Kennedy (Issue No. 6.75™). There's the bimbo Czech reporter who is repeatedly rejected for an interview with Kennedy because even though she admires him, she poses a demographic danger by representing a country perceived as Communist and anti-American (Issue No. 7™). And last (and vying for the spot of "least" with just about every other sub-plot) is the affluent white couple who seem to have it all.... but do they? He's being treated for depression, and can't seem to connect with his wife in the way that he wants to. She loves him, but she wears shoes that look good and hurt her feet (Issue No. 8™). "It's not about how it feels, it's how it looks," she tells him. Clever™, isn't it?

It could have been. It should have been. But it just isn't. The cast listing is enough to impress anyone with a pulse (Sharon Stone, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Fishburn, Helen Hunt, Martin Sheen, Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Elijha Wood, Lindsay Lohan, Charlie Slater, Harry Belafonte) - if only the actual film itself had one. It does not a single one of these actors any justice, who all run the risk of looking like high-class duds, if they weren't to be forgiven for the appalling script they are left to work with. That's what ultimately sinks the ship, here. Estevez is an amateur director who spends too much time copying a range of directorial styles, and doing trite but trendy (and oh so done) ideas - but it would have passed, at least. As would his unnecessary inclusion of himself in the acting cast (so much from the one man, and yet too much, for it amounts to so very little), if it weren't for the abominable first-year film-school screenplay that drags the whole thing into expensive daytime television - but acting like it's not only much better, but much more profound than it really is.

Take, for example, the socially conscious wedding of Lohan and Wood. Firstly, the width of the film gives it not a second to breathe any of the narratives into flesh and blood (meaning that when it's all said and done, I didn't really care what happened to them, anyway). It may feel like the work of a first year film student, but it's a student who clearly isn't listening to the first cliche any writing teacher instructs his writers; "Show - don't tell." There's just not enough time here to show anything, and so Stone's character of the Hotel hairdresser proves itself to be contrived predominantly for exposition purposes, by allowing characters to tell us the story we haven't got time to see (whilst getting their hair and nails done). This is how we are introduced to the story of the young bride to be, who marries a man to prevent him being killed in the war. There isn't even enough time to make the monologues of exposition seem at all natural by at least being in an interactive conversation. Lohan rambles off what must be twenty lines of narrative, without Stone so much as uttering a word. Within twenty seconds, we are told the story, and from there, not a great deal more is shown. We see Lohan and her future groom pray in the Hotel chapel (it gets about an eight on the cheese-o-meter, but is eventually surpassed by many other moments of the film); and then, once the heart-warming American sentiment is out of the way, we get the day-time soap kicking in. It's the sign of any good director to know when to "turn his actors down", but one gets the impression that if anything, rather than clipping the over-acting in order to produce any level of engaging realism, Estevez has demanded performances so over-bearing and verbose that at three separate points in the film, Bobby became a comedy, and I couldn't keep my laughter in.

Inevitably, Wood huffs and puffs, pacing back and forth with a pained expression, as Lohan hangs on the brim of realisation and passion. Cue the Days of Our Lives dialogue and facial expressions...

"I don't... I can't...", stutters Wood (painfully); "I don't think I can do this."

"No. It feels right in my head, and in my heart", protests Lohan, corresponding the dialogue with placing her hand on her head and her heart (because in this kind of draaaammmaaaa, words are just not enough).

A moment later, there's a long, knowing glance; and then - despite that we've known nothing more of these characters than what Lohan has told Stone, and their later conversation about prayer and the bad war - they lock in Passionate Embrace™. And sure, perhaps I just spoiled a plot for you; but don't worry - there's another nine or ten that are no more or less gripping, and by the time you get to the end, you would have worked out what kind of film this is, and will know exactly what's going to happen, anyway. And if you're anything like me, neither will you particularly care. To think that I began this film so ready for my journey into left-wing social compassion as conveyed through the timely reminder of the death of Bobby Kennedy. An hour into it, I looked at my watch and sighed; "Oh, just hurry up and get shot, and let me out of this."

And because I probably wouldn't have listened to me, either (in fact, the film does have it's share of bad reviews - though I believe I've won the gold medal for most scathing), and because I know very well that many of you will still see Bobby, I will spoil no more. But allow me to plant a knowing inner-joke that one day, you will find a moment in time where you know exactly what I mean. The Lohan/Wood narrative sinks pretty low, but even this is eclipsed by other moments. And one in particular stands out. No matter how bad you start to fear this film is going to become, nothing in the world could prepare you - nothing - for the final destination of the African-American/Latino struggle. I'm not going to ruin it for you (it would just be wrong), but I will tell you this: when Laurence Fishburn picks up a black texta and starts writing on the kitchen wall (The writing's on the wall - get it? Huh? Do 'ya?) know that Emilio Estevez' Bobby is about to hit rock bottom. Trust me on that one; you'll know what I mean when you get there. How does the poignancy of King Arthur make it's way into this rubbish? You'll see, my friend, you'll see.

Yada, yada, yada, Bobby gets shot.

And here's the thing about the climax. It's actually incredibly moving. After all that - after all the loathing and boredom I've just brutally described to you (and still, I fear I've undersold just how bad it is), I actually shed tears. This is the ultimate problem of Bobby, and sadly, why I suspect some people who should know better will be caught up by the trickery - and laziness - of the film's final sequence. Regardless of to what extent you agree with me on the film's body, you will be moved by that ending. You will think, for a fleeting, delusional moment; "Aaawww, was I too hard on this film? Is this actually a good film, after all? Has Emilio actually done something really wonderful?"

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. One word, two letters - NO.

Is Bobby Kennedy a great man, and was 1968 the verge of a world that would be stolen by a single gunshot, a world that today seems so infuriatingly far away? Yes. Despite the horror of putting myself through Estevez' Clever™ bullshit, I was entrance by the few (far too short) excerpts from Kennedy's campaign trail, and in the end, it is Kennedy - not Estevez - who shines through. If you can find yourself the speech, you can save yourself a lot of trouble, and you won't be any less moved than you will be at the end of the film. It's cruel to hear this man speak, and beyond that, to know that it actually entranced the nation we now shake our heads at. I will not give Estevez the credit for my tears - he simply doesn't deserve them.

Furthermore, the undeniably profound reality that the memory and story of this man shoves in our face is arguably sold short by the film. Here was this great man, actually finding his way into the hearts of a lost and struggling people. The left almost took hold of that country, and what happened? The darkness, the poison of that society, walked right up and stopped it with a bullet - with cold blooded murder. The rest, as they say, is history. The next time America would invade a country on that scale, it would be a little place in the Middle East known as Iraq. It would happen at the same time as walls were being built to stop immigrants, and supposedly moral wars were being fought against all types of social minorities. The right was nearly defeated - but the fact is, it wasn't. I'm not denying the need for hope in light of this, but the level - and nature - of hope (with glazed icing) put forward by Estevez' trite garbage is almost insulting to the real social portrait at hand.

But if Emilio Estevez can subject the mainstream to the words and ideology - to the feeling - of Robert Kennedy (they're not going to watch Robert Kennedy speeches, but they're going to see the latest Hollywood extravaganza), then I say we should all let him, and furthermore, we should actively be part of it. They're going to fall for the trite anyway; and at the end of it, they will shed tears for the ideals of this great man, and for the dark heart that beats within the right. I made a decision to write this review honestly, and to treat you as an insider. But know that I will tell everyone else how wonderful this film is, and how they should get themselves to the nearest multiplex. If you know anyone who needs it - and let's face it, we all know quite a few - for heaven's sake, don't put them on to this review. Repeat after me... "Bobby rocks". Tell it to your Mother; tell it to your brother; tell it to anyone who you think will believe you. Bobby is one of the worst films I have ever sat through - and we should tell anyone we know to see it.