'Bobby' interesting, but confusing

A star-studded cast can't save this movie, this group concluded.
By KATIE LIBECCO
VINDY.COM CORRESPONDENT
BOARDMAN -- "Bobby," the new movie about the presidential campaign and assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, could have used a better title.
That, at least, was the consensus of a group of Youngstown State University students who reviewed the film this weekend at Cinemark's Tinseltown in Boardman.
Besides myself, the group included Josh Terlecki, a telecommunications major who makes short films in his free time; Ian Tanner, 21, a political science major with a minor in history and a member of the College Republicans; and Steve Lettau, 21, a journalism major with a minor in history.
The three men concluded that because of the story "Bobby" tells, it's nearly impossible to dislike the movie.
But Tanner added, "There wasn't much in it about Bobby. I don't know why it was called that; he was barely in it. Don't expect it be Bobby's life story, because it's not that."
"It was good, but there were parts that I didn't even understand what was going on," Tanner said.
"It was confusing at first, because it was like -- where's Bobby? I was expecting it to be about him, more of his own personal life and his reactions to what was going on at that time," Lettau said. "But looking back, I kind of liked it. Everything came together in the end and all of the characters were connected to the other victims."
Lettau also said he felt the other characters established the mood for the film.
"The back story of the other victims set the background for the era and time," Lettau said. "The other characters set up the feelings and got you into the older footage."
He was referring to the five other people shot by Sirhan Sirhan, Kenney's killer.
But Terlecki disagreed, saying it was difficult to follow the main plot with so many subplots going on.
"I kept getting distracted by the fact they kept introducing new stars. But I thought the acting was still weak, despite the number of stars," he said.
"Trying to figure out who's who drew me in," Lettau said. "I still don't know who Martin Sheen's character was supposed to be."
The stars include hip-hop artist and actor Nick Cannon, Heather Graham plus A-list actors Ashton Kutcher and his wife, Demi Moore, Laurence Fishburne, Helen Hunt, Lindsay Lohan, Christian Slater, Sharon Stone, Martin Sheen, Freddy Rodriquez, Elijah Wood and Anthony Hopkins, as well as Joshua Jackson and Shia La Beouf.
Overall, the group saw William H. Macy as the savior of the movie.
"William H. Macy saved it. He's always the anchor of movies," Terlecki said.
All felt Lohan was a bad choice for the movie.
"She wasn't believable at all," Tanner said, citing a lack of real emotion in the intense moments she faces in the film.
But it wasn't just Lohan.
"The situations were believable, but not the dialogue," Terlecki said.
"They put a lot of modern things in the dialogue. Like chads. I didn't know what a chad was until 2004. Apparently they were talking about them in '60s," Tanner said.
All saw correlations between the cultural environment of the late '60s and today.
"There's the same voting problem, chads, slow counting," Tanner said.
"It's just a matter of, when's the next charismatic person gonna run?" Lettau said.
"He we are 40 years later, and we're wondering, who's gonne be the one guy," Tanner said.
But charismatic Kennedy received little focus, especially in the beginning, of a movie presumably about him. But all three agreed that it was a good idea to not have an actor "pretending to be Bobby," as Tanner put it. In fact, there was only a brief glimpse of an actor playing Kennedy, credited as David Fraunces, as he walked into the hotel. His face was not shown, however, as the camera angle quickly jumped to what Kennedy would have been seeing as he walked in.
For the rest of the movie, Kennedy was interjected into the plot through news programs on the television in scenes, spliced-in archival footage actually taken of Kennedy, and speeches he made played over montages of more archival footage and still photographs from his life.
Despite generally liking the film, the group did question as to why "Bobby" was released this weekend.
"Why did they release this Thanksgiving weekend? It's family time, family movies, you know? They should've done it before the elections," Lettau said.
The three agreed was a good movie, but not necessarily an important docu-drama.
"I feel good I watched it," Tanner stressed.
However, I can't help but look forward to the DVD release of "Bobby."
I'm expecting a detailed director's commentary from writer and director Emilio Estevez, with some additional insight. I'm also hoping for deleted scenes that could help piece together some of the confusing subplots. And the original footage from Kennedy on the campaign trail is definitely worth watching again.
klibecco@vindy.com