OMG..I just saw it today (Thanksgiving)..I just wrote about this for another question. Here is what I said in this previous answer.
To the poster above, who cares? whoa..I will tell you who cares those who lived through and experienced those life altering days..he influenced the course of my life and seeing the movie made me want to live a better one today of substance and love and forgiveness for those I have hated in the past for whatever reason what the person above me said.. If a movie has that effect on someone, it is substantive.
Who cares...people who can see in this story history repeating itself and still grappling with the same problems, human emotions and who are wise enough to learn from history. It was a time for political involvement by the masses and the everyday guy. It was a time of courage and idealism. For a generation of peope, Bobby represented our hopes and dreams for a better world..of peace, compassion, equality, service that was cruelty taken away..yet again we had to face the 3rd funeral of men who moved our hearts and souls with their stirring words of truth, inspiration, calling us to a better us.
Had he lived, he would have won and changed the direction of history and we might have actually had the world we long for, yet that was taken from us likely now forever by the wealthy elite now running our coutry in the ground. With Bobby, history subsequently proved, our hopes were indeed dashed never quite to be reached again to that level. He moved people's hearts. He, like JFK, had charisma, charm, intelligence, and though he didn't had to, he lived his life trying to make conditions right for those who were the underdogs of society.. Who cares? People of intelligence and insight who were impacted by this event..they care and even my brother who was only a few years old and my nephew now 16 all said it was an excellent movie..we gave it 2 4's and one 3..
Often it is hard for people not yet born during an era to see and feel what things were like then. The 50's were the greatest time to be a kid in this century and the 60's the greatest time to be a teenager and young adult...those who lived then will mostly agree with this statement..those who did not live then will not understand and consequently, misinterpret and minimize the greatness of that time in history.
I feel sorry for those who only got the 70's through today for none of these times was better and were all worse than the 50's and 60's that shaped a huge generation of people. I myself can't relate to the 40's but my mom can, of course, so I understand where younger people are coming from. Arnold Toynbee, the great historian said, "those who forget the past are destined to repeat it." So no, I disagree with who cares about the past-- the past is important.
But before I write what I wrote there, as far as the movie, let me tell you more about it. It shows original clips, but primarily focuses on the storylines of several different people all in the same hotel the day Bobby is to arrive there for his what turned out to be final speech. I was disappointed they didn't show more clips of Bobby and his speeches, but they did the movie well regardless and the ending is phenomenal and ties it up and is extremely emotional..see what I wrote below.
After eating Thanksgiving dinner, I then went to the movies with my brother and nephew. We saw Bobby which was a four star movie IMO.
Although actual clips and talking about Bobby Kennedy were sparse I thought..they tied it all up very nicely in the end working the many characters into the storyline and the original footage and overplayed a speech he made.
I was greatly inspired by Bobby Kennedy as a teenager. He wrote me once and I memorized his speeches. I had wanted to go into politics at the time. I remember many of the words to this day nearly 40 years later. I loved politics and wanted to go into that but got married instead.
At age ten on my own, I went to JFK headquarters (everyone I knew was democrat back then) and handed out campaign literature. I memorized his inaugural address which was a fantastic speech. I read his book "profiles in courage" which influenced greatly how I reared my children with moral courage and dare to be different and stand up for the good no matter if you stand alone and are ostracized. Be yourself, be brave, and stand up for what you believe. Be a nonconformist. I drilled this stuff in them..
But it was Bobby Kennedy who won my heart and who inspired me, I thought he was truly as his his brother, Teddy, said in his eulogy "a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."
It was really upsetting and tense in the movie waiting for the moment in the they would show him shot when he started to speak in the hotel. I was really struck with how strongly I reacted. I cried during the ending profusely and kept covering my face in my hands. I almost sobbed aloud and had to really control it. I cried after leaving about 15 minutes. Rarely am I that emotionally struck by a movie..It was if it was happening..it brought me right back to that devastating moment and the days that followed in 1968. I reflected on the influence he had on my life and wanted to do better at loving others in reflecting on his words to bring our nation to unity and to get along with those different from us--black and white..rich and poor..etc..how appropriate to today's climate. How he gotten elected president, it may well have changed the course of history, I remember well how JFK inspired the citizens of the country to want to make the country better, fairer, kinder, etc .Now it is self centered, wracked with hatred, and aspathetic. He made us want to do service and to love others. Now it is every man for himself.He made us think with his beautifully expressed words. Now people take what they are told as sheep without independent thought.
I am thankful I lived through the life changing moments of the three assassinations (JFK, RFK. and ML King) sad though they were..how we cried..and how that and the war touched us baby boomers who have now abandoned their youthful ideals and promises to become the yuppie destroyers of generation X abandoning their kids esentially for the workplace and persuing the accumulation of things instead of speaking out against the established way of doing business that was not right.....may they return to thier roots.
I realized for many these were life defining moments and I longed for the lost opportunities and the path we might have gone down with this man who said "some men see things as they are and ask why, I dream things that never were and say why not?" Had he not been cut down in the prime of his life, I believe he might have won the election and change the course of the country and history
As far as what is the rest of the movie about. It centers around the Ambasser hotel the day he is killed and the various storylines about what is going on in the lives of a number of people tying them all into the subsequent ending which is his assasination. Even though I wanted more clips and story about Bobby then all these different things going on with people in the hotel the dasy it happened, one still leaves with Bobby and what happened and might have been on one's mind.