Robert Altman did it on his superb GOSFORD PARK. Paul Haggis crusted his own name on the moving CRASH. Now Emilio Estevez, one of Hollywood’s firebrand names, wanted to create his own ensemble thus resulting BOBBY, an intentionally good story about 22 different people set in the Ambassador Hotel before the assassination of one of America’s finest leaders, Robert Kennedy, in its own kitchen floor. The Kennedy’s demise was true as the whole nation was gripped with astounding sadness and hopelessness, as for the people in the hotel in which these characters are based, I have no effin’ clue. Ask Estevez.

BOBBY doesn’t do a CRASH for me, as what Paul Haggis had taught us that respect must come between different races. However, I realise BOBBY isn’t supposed to be a culture-clashing drama ensemble but a slightly slow-moving tale about a nation deeply wrought by a fall of the society’s most inspiring leaders. It’s about a society with malfunctions, troubles that reverberated during the 60s and 70s in America, religious factions, drug abuse, racial issues and the turbulent Vietnam War.

I found respect in Estevez no matter how inconstant his picture is, no matter how uneven and imperfect it was, flawed by obvious reasons, deluded by too many marquee stars that made this more commercial than a fire-powered indie gem. Regardless of the slow evolution of the story, sometimes with nonsense additions, Estevez is respectable and appreciable enough to handle his actors well. With sprawling names like Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Laurence Fishburne, Elijah Wood, Lindsay Lohan, Martin Sheen, Helen Hunt, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, Heather Graham, William H. Macy, Christian Slater and Emilio Estevez himself also stars – this is one film that Robert Altman may feel skittish. Estevez had respect to his characters as well, letting each one shine in their own aspect.

As it is an ensemble, the storyline relies heavily on its characters’ shoulders: Anthony Hopkins as the Ambassador Hotel manager, his haunted stare as he greets Kennedy on his doorstep, Emilio Estevez as the husband of a trash-mouthed, heavy-drinking, monster of a wife Demi Moore, a jazz singer, Martin Sheen as the kind-hearted husband of a sophisticated, I-wanted-to-be-somebody Helen Hunt, William H. Macy as a big-named hotel employee having an affair with Heather Graham, avoiding the brows and big hair of hotel hairdresser Sharon Stone.

Somewhere in the hotel, there’s a bittersweet story of a determined teen girl (Lindsay Lohan) who is set to wed a teen boy (Elijah Wood) surreptitiously to restrain him from being sent to Vietnam. Two RFK supporters hides away from the hustle-and-bustle and engaged their selves to drug emancipation with Bee Gees look-a-like Ashton Kutcher (with the most awkward-looking performance ever). A head chef (Laurence Fishburne) is dishing up his philosophy in the kitchens as he teaches his cooks of different races about anger and violence, and several yards away, Christian Slater was fired due to his discrimination of a Mexican employee.

There are personal stories reverberating and they were set against a much bigger picture of a nation’s struggle and complexity. The film might be a tad plodding at certain junctions but BOBBY at its best gives a surprising, powerful emotional punch at its climax, telling us how a single bullet had led a whole nation to its despair and lack of hope. The usage of real footages as Kennedy delivered his last speech was haunting, combined with screen reel and the viscera of documentary feel makes this one a hard-to-beat. While not all performances are worth spending your time with, quite a few delivered memorable ones, especially Demi Moore, whose foul-mouthed character showed that there was depth beneath her heavy-lidded, drunken eyes (the scene with Sharon Stone was silent and respectable), also Sharon Stone, whose un-BASIC INSTINCT-like character had more modesty and heart as she discovers her husband’s affair. Finally, the very surprising Lindsay Lohan delivers an appropriate and clean (drug-free, alcohol-free, rehab-free) performance as the bride-to-be resolute to save his lover from being sent to Vietnam, despite of her parents’ dispute.

BOBBY gathers its echoes rather decently because it has good intentions. It’s not a biography of the late Robert Kennedy, but a tribute to the age of hopelessness, a homage to the time when two great people of different races, Martin Luther King and Kennedy himself, were inhumanly assassinated, that resulted to a nation’s despair and societal conflicts. Without the nonsense additions, the unrelated characters, and awkward moments, this film might have been better. To this result, it’s quixotic. It undermines its own greatness, yet constantly prods with the aspiration of the majestic. However, the heart-punch at the end in unnerving.

Rating: B+