Critic Reviews
Bobby (2006) Rank 5 Reviews
Expert Review Summary
based on (41) reviews
Click on the numbers to the right of the graph to see reviews of that rating
Poor
0
(0)
Reviews by Score:
San Francisco Chronicle (Mick LaSalle)
Why such a structurally scattered movie should hang together at all is a mystery. That it does more than that, that it works brilliantly, is a miracle, or at the very least the product of unquantifiable causes. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at San Francisco Chronicle (Mick LaSalle)
Christian Science Monitor (Peter Rainer)
It's a sideways view of a national trauma. The large cast includes standout performances from such unlikelies as Demi Moore, playing an alcoholic crooner, and Estevez himself, as her long-suffering husband. Everyone in this film is powerful. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Christian Science Monitor (Peter Rainer)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (William Arnold)
For all its unevenness, Bobby is a powerful, poignant movie and its ending -- played over a long excerpt of one of RFK's most compassionate speeches, voiced with none of the cliches of political rhetoric -- was, for me, the movie year's single most ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Seattle Post-Intelligencer (William Arnold)
The Oscar Igloo
Baltimore Sun (Chris Kaltenbach)
The film's impact and poignancy are undeniable. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Baltimore Sun (Chris Kaltenbach)
The New Yorker (David Denby)
Estevez has made a vague gesture at a large, metaphoric structure without having the dramatic means to achieve it. His choreography of the panic and misery in the hotel after the shooting is impressive, and some of the actors do fine in their brief roles. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at The New Yorker (David Denby)
LA Weekly (Scott Foundas)
The only character who emerges as more than an ideological mouthpiece, and nearly saves the movie, is the Ambassador's resident hairstylist, who masks her faded beauty with a thick coat of eye shadow and an overteased hairdo. I kept wondering who this ...read the complete Bobby movie review at LA Weekly (Scott Foundas)
TV Guide (Maitland McDonagh)
Though Estevez's achievement doesn't quite live up to his ambitions -- the climax of Altman's "Nashville" (1975) evokes the same brutal loss of innocence to more shattering effect -- it still contains enough powerful moments to balance the weaker ...read the complete Bobby movie review at TV Guide (Maitland McDonagh)
Premiere (Scott Warren)
Alll in all, however, Estevez has pulled together the best political drama, fiction or otherwise, in recent memory. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Premiere (Scott Warren)
Planet Sick-Boy (Jon Popick)
Washington Post (Ann Hornaday)
Bobby, even if it suffers from a few silly scenes, gets more right than it does wrong. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Washington Post (Ann Hornaday)
Chicago Reader (Jonathan Rosenbaum)
So keenly felt and so deeply imagined I couldn't help but be moved, even grateful for its bleeding-heart nostalgia. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Chicago Reader (Jonathan Rosenbaum)
Newsweek (David Ansen)
You don't have to have lived through the period to find this wrenching. And you don't have to doubt Estevez's sincerity to find it emotionally opportunistic. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Newsweek (David Ansen)
Variety (Deborah Young)
Emilio Estevez's Bobby is a passionate outcry for peace and justice in America that becomes deeply involving by the final climactic scene. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Variety (Deborah Young)
Austin Chronicle (Josh Rosenblatt)
The movie isn't about Kennedy; rather, Kennedy is the sun around which all the other planets of the film revolve. And like some epic Louis B. Mayer picture from the Thirties, Bobby has a thousand stars in its galaxy, some of them great (Fishburne, ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Austin Chronicle (Josh Rosenblatt)
CineFile : il Cinema in Rete (Tommaso Tocci)
USA Today (Claudia Puig)
Despite its flaws, its intriguing premise leaves us haunted by thoughts of "What ...read the complete Bobby movie review at USA Today (Claudia Puig)
New York Daily News (Elizabeth Weitzman)
This is simply too vast a task for a filmmaker as inexperienced as Estevez. Compared with, say, Robert Altman's similar but far more complex "Nashville," Bobby mostly comes off as a Hollywood public service announcement: passionate, righteous and ...read the complete Bobby movie review at New York Daily News (Elizabeth Weitzman)
Empire Movies (Brendan Cullin)
Empire (Angie Errigo)
A remarkable ensemble in an uneven patchwork of loss, longing and the urgent necessity of a societal rethink. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Empire (Angie Errigo)
New York Magazine (David Edelstein)
Despite the clunkiness, Estevez's commitment to his father's generation’s idealism (and its murder) commands respect. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at New York Magazine (David Edelstein)
The New York Times (A.O. Scott)
When you hear his (Robert Kennedy's) patient, meditative speeches, from which every note of demagoguery or pandering has been purged, you glimpse the film Mr. Estevez set out to make -- the one you may wish you were watching. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at The New York Times (A.O. Scott)
The Hollywood Reporter (Ray Bennett)
Whether or not Bobby Kennedy was the man his supporters believed him to be, the film makes a persuasive case that something important in America was silenced when he was gunned down. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at The Hollywood Reporter (Ray Bennett)
Portland Oregonian (Shawn Levy)
For all its flaws, though, Bobby is still moving. Not so much with its indifferent characters, but rather with the overall mood of a common hope crushed into shapeless grief. That painful historical moment is worth revisiting, as is the image of the man ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Portland Oregonian (Shawn Levy)
Entertainment Weekly (Owen Gleiberman)
Bobby coasts along on a dread, and sorrow, it doesn't earn. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Entertainment Weekly (Owen Gleiberman)
Boxoffice Magazine
Philadelphia Inquirer (Steven Rea)
Bobby has its heart in the right place (on its sleeve). But it doesn't have its screenplay anywhere - or at least, anywhere near the heft that its subject demands. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Philadelphia Inquirer (Steven Rea)
ReelViews (James Berardinelli)
The resulting finished project is a series of skits performed by famous people doing favors for a friend, and it works about as well as one might expect from such an endeavor. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at ReelViews (James Berardinelli)
The Onion (A.V. Club) (Keith Phipps)
The film has virtually nothing to say about the man, or about much of anything, really. It's a sketchbook trying to pass as a tapestry. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at The Onion (A.V. Club) (Keith Phipps)
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) (Liam Lacey)
Fascinating, even when it's fascinatingly bad. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at The Globe and Mail (Toronto) (Liam Lacey)
Salon.com (Stephanie Zacharek)
Just when you think you've got a handle on the central characters in Bobby, yet more of them appear: The thing is a little like the stateroom scene in "A Night at the ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Salon.com (Stephanie Zacharek)
Village Voice (Jim Ridley)
Bobby can be seen clearly for what it is--an "Airport" movie with the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy as the central calamity and an all-star cast deployed like multiple George Kennedys. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Village Voice (Jim Ridley)
Los Angeles Times (Kevin Crust)
It's an ambitious film drenched in sincerity and oozing with nostalgia that, despite the energy provided by its title icon via archival footage, falls flat dramatically in nearly every other way. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Los Angeles Times (Kevin Crust)
Los Angeles Times (Kevin Crust)
It's an ambitious film drenched in sincerity and oozing with nostalgia that, despite the energy provided by its title icon via archival footage, falls flat dramatically in nearly every other way. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Los Angeles Times (Kevin Crust)
New York Post (Lou Lumenick)
One of the year's worst movies. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at New York Post (Lou Lumenick)
Rolling Stone (Peter Travers)
Estevez means well. But having your heart in the right place is no excuse for insipid ineptitude. ...read the complete Bobby movie review at Rolling Stone (Peter Travers)
from $3.21
(23 sellers)
User Reviews
User Comments
del.icio.us
Digg
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! My Web
Facebook
Google Bookmarks
ma.gnolia
Newsvine
reddit
Windows Live
