The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

It's June 4, 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. Robert F. Kennedy is running for President. It's his campaign headquarters. The movie follows various characters in the hotel leading up to the momentous assassination. This is reminiscent of the classic 'Grand Hotel' which is mentioned in the movie. Written, directed and staring Emilio Estevez, this movie is following way too many characters and stories. None of them stand out and none of them has enough time anyways. There are a few compelling scenes but they're buried underneath a pile of other random scenes. The recreation of Bobby's walk through the kitchen is very effective. If only the rest of the movie has that kind of compelling tension. The cast is first rate although some of them can't leave their movie star quality behind to blend into the scenes.

An interesting idea for a movie that despite a powerful finale, just has far too much to say.The film is set on the day Robert Kennedy was killed at the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles. However, it isn't really a detailed look at the assassination, and doesn't go anywhere near a conspiracy theory – the film heads in a different direction entirely.Intercut with real footage of Bobby Kennedy, the film goes behind the scenes on the fateful day and focuses on the staff and guests at the hotel. The reason many of these characters were chosen becomes obvious at the end. These include an ex-doorman, the manager, the guys in the kitchen, the girls on the hotel's switchboard and various guests. The script attempts to give back-story to each of the characters, but in doing so the movie never really shuts up. Everybody prattles on giving chunks of exposition or information to make their characters sound real. The script for this thing must have been massive; it probably needed to be wheeled around in a shopping trolley.Unfortunately, despite the verbiage, much of what takes place is superficial and actorish. The film seems inspired by Robert Altman's "Shortcuts" and "Nashville" where a number of vignettes come together at the end. However, for the most part, "Bobby" lacks the sting, and most importantly, the restraint of Altman's films.And restraint is the key here because writer/director Emilio Estevez shows very little. It seems as though every opinion he ever had is espoused by at least one of the characters – often with an anthem swelling on the soundtrack. These cover topics amongst others such as the sanctity of marriage, the aging process and race relations. Maybe this all looked very important to the actors who may have been impressed by the set piece speeches that have the gravitas of Shakespearean soliloquies.Some of the vignettes are overwritten and tedious. The two young campaign volunteers who meet up with the hippie drug dealer and get high are the most irritating, but are closely followed by the female Czech reporter. Not many of the actors come across as completely natural. However Lindsay Lohan does; she gives a believable and touching performance.Many of the sentiments the characters express are almost as lofty as Bobby Kennedy's impassioned speeches, but where his were full of conviction and caught the temper of the times, much of what the characters have to say is cloying and forced.But the ending works. Set in the kitchen of the hotel, it is superbly staged and is a clever blend of real footage and recreation. It brings home the horror of Robert Kennedy's death and also reminds us that a number of others were hit in the fusillade of shots.The finale goes some way towards making up for earlier shortcomings, but not entirely. It would be a hard movie to contemplate sitting through again – and that for me is the test of a good movie.

In this production the director attempts to return us to the mood of the late 60s - an era where too many of us believed the improbable was the likely and the customary was the enemy. Estevez employs the technique of "look(ing) at things the way they {were}, and ask why" ... then dream of what never was but try to make it true on camera.The film is filled with fictional accounts of the invented lives of guests and employees at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles - "people com(ing), people go(ing), nothing ever happening" until the final moments of the film. Yet in this paean, the title character is treated so reverentially the role of Bobby remains uncast. Instead, Estevez uses news clips to establish mise-en-scène. Unlike the film's never identified shooter, the director misses.The film's only contrast is that it omits important historical facts in preference for the superfluous. Despite the film's buildup of election year hope in the fictional characters, we are not shown the Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan's motive of despair or Bobby Kennedy's firm support of Israel during the Six-Day War and beyond. Despite the unacknowledged troop buildup in Vietnam by John Kennedy, the film hovers on Bobby's desire to remove those troops quickly. Despite the hope in RFK presented through the eyes of a young black "everyman" campaign worker, the film neglects to tell us that, while Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy issued a directive authorizing the FBI to wiretap Martin Luther King and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Instead of these historical relevancies we are treated to a view of how two of Kennedy's campaign workers would have looked if they had tried to play tennis while wearing business suits after dropping acid - more fiction.As Bobby in life, the film "Bobby" is full of hope but leaves us well short of its goal. Only one Bobby is blameless for this. 2 stars.

I have mixed feelings about this movie. A lot of the scenes have nothing to do with Senator Kennedy - so the word fill-in comes to mind. However these scenes are well-done and keep you interested - Demie Moore as a drunk was quite hilarious. Perhaps the movie should have been called 'Ambassador Hotel'. For more about Senator Kennedy see a documentary on PBS. Also as I was watching the movie I felt it would have been more interesting to have a movie on the day after, rather than prior to the assassination. It must have been very traumatic for all those in the hotel who showed up for work the next day. The scenes at the end of the movie are riveting and heart-breaking.