...is the right word about this film who has three basic virtues - the touching story, the wise ideas and the great cast. it is not easy to say why this film is real special. maybe, for the change of perspective. about politic, about America and about the profound revolution changing a society. the only decent word - see it ! maybe, for discover a surprising director giving his film as pledge for values, as map of beautiful characters, as history lesson. and as useful support for reflection.

I was NOT ever a Kennedy supporter. Not back then. Now, 50 years + later, how I wish these men had been given the opportunity to carry out their terms and change America to include all our people and begin to really build America. I would vote for them today! What their father did to build the family fortune was back in the 30's! Who cares! I think his sons wanted to give back to America. (not so abiding with Teddy. His lack of judgment at Chappaq was unforgivable)I just think it is UNthinkable that JFK MX MLK & RFK were ALL assassinated back in the 60's. That is about as ugly a chapter that America has ever shown to the world, outside of the Civil War! It is so perplexing to comprehend this happening in America.

Such a film is imprinted with nostalgia and a tremendous human lesson in history.When all these events were happening all over the world in Czechoslovakia, France, China, the USA and many other countries, when we thought the world was going to change completely overnight, I was in Africa and I lived the closure of these enthusing events in Kinshasa.And all the events came to a complete halt. In Czechoslovakia, the Russians will come later on to curb their spring down. In France elections will give the widest majority de Gaulle ever had. In The USA Martin Luther King was assassinated, Robert Kennedy was assassinated and the war in Vietnam got seven more years of rotting madness.We thought the world could be changed by the masses and it was not. The masses are not the whole people and it often takes few people in a mass to neutralize the mass or lead it over the brink. History is probably not done by the masses but in fact it is done by itself, by its own contradictions and its own means. In 1968, the war in Vietnam was not ripe enough to bring a defeat to the US and in the US, apart from the young and the Blacks, the vast silent majority voted for the war and not for its end. In Czechoslovakia, like in all the "socialist" countries the situation was not ripe for the fall of the Soviet dogma, or the Maoist one as for that.But when is history ripe for change? No one can say before, or very few can and these are not listened to. No one can program a revolution and it is often pure chance when one occurs. It is not the decision of one man or one group of people. It is the result of vast conditions that have to be favorable to that change and myriads of parameters that have to converge towards such an event. The Soviet revolution was the result of an international situation that made Russia ripe for a radical change, just as the Chinese revolution was the result of a similar international situation.In 1968 nothing was ripe for a radical change in any country at all. Any change could happen only after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, and even so it had to emerge in China first with the elimination of Lin Biao in 1971 and the slow emergence of Deng Xiaoping. And that only came because China was China and the Chinese people wanted to improve their lot by their own means and efforts and some leaders were able to capture this need, this want, this desire to turn it into patriotism.This film then is the demonstration that it is not enough even to win an important primary for history to accept to let the winner take over and change the world. The world changes when history is ready for that change. The only thing we can be sure of is that in the long run it will become freer, more democratic, more peaceful, richer and maybe also wiser. But there is no end to that slow and long process: there will always be some more steps to take.What can we do? Remember the failed opportunities of the past and try to build new opportunities like with this film in 2006 and 2007 that contributed to Obama's history, and keep in mind that one step forward may be followed by two steps backward, and then later on maybe by three steps forward. No one can tell. No one can predict or decide of these steps, though it would be absurd not to seize an opportunity when it appears, even if in the end it fails.This film is unluckily not serious enough as for the historical dimension of these tragic events. It is too nostalgic and even sentimental. But it played its role even if the real film on the subject gas to be done and the absence of security for one still has to be analyzed and understood. It is too easy to say that America has a violent culture. It also had a particularly negligent security policy. Security was the least important item of their consciousness. Man is benevolent by definition, but man is also violent by definition. They considered the first side of man and forgot the second though they tried to appeal to it in Vietnam.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Emilio Estevez is properly the lesser known member of Sheen family, even though he starred in The Breakfast Club and the Mighty Ducks. However whilst a talented actor he is also a writer and director and with Bobby he assembled an assemble cast including Anthony Hopkins, William H. Macy, Martin Sheen, Elijah Wood, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Lindsay Lohan, Sharon Stone et al.Bobby is set on the day of the California Primacy in 1968, with Senator Robert Kennedy on the edge of being elected to be the Democratic Presidential Candidate. America is going through a period of social upheaval: the country is in an unpopular war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement is in full swing and drugs culture is growing. At the Ambassador Hotel in Los Andreas Estevez explores these issues of the 60s in a microcosmic of the world. There is a young couple played by Wood and Lohan who are marrying so that he can avoid being sent to Vietnam, a Latino busboy Jose (Freddy Rodriguez) who is an example of America's growing immigrant population, the Hotel Manager played by Macy who sees himself as a great liberal supporter of RFK but his attitude towards women is not so enlightened, the kitchen manager (Slater) who has racist attitudes towards Mexicans and two campaign workers (LaBeouf and Brian Geraghty) skipping knocking on doors to take some powerful LSD.Estevez makes a bold film about the 60s, and does a good job judging all the themes and characters in the film. He has a keen eye for direction, getting the look of the 60s about right, with good cinematography and fine camera movements. There is a good soundtrack of 60s songs and he does try and be ambitious playing the song Initials (from Hair) when the campaign workers are stoned and see imagines of Vietnam. This is a film about the 60s, a period of turmoil and even though there are political issues like racisms this is film is more a social piece then a political film. There are some parallels to more contemporary issues like American treatment of Latino immigrants and how there are discriminated against, particularly because of the recent laws passed in Arizona whilst doing the jobs no one else wants, African American still live in in-povertised areas and also discriminated against and America involved in a popular war. Kennedy offers hope but Estevez only shows him in achieve footage or out of focus: he was not a main player in the film.There is a great cast and good acting throughout. But a problem with the film is that there are so many characters that not all of theme are developed and not many of them are well developed. There were characters that could have been easily cut, like Sheen and Helen Hunt's characters who add nothing to the film and should have cut (and the two did their best and I like Sheen as an actor). The same can be said about Anthony Hopkins who was a real weak link in the film. Estevez needed to streamline his acting and directing.Overall an ambitious film that is underrated.