Bob Roberts
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Movie Reviews of Bob Roberts
Movie Review: "Are You a Communist?"
Summary: 3 Stars
Still weirdly prescient as it approaches its 20th Anniversary, Tim Robbins' "Bob Roberts" is a mockumentary that skews the far right with a very thick blade. Robbins (who wrote the script, directed and co-wrote the music with his brother) plays Roberts, a smug phony of a candidate running for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania. He's savvy, smart, plays a mean guitar and isn't above a slew of dirty tricks. His hapless opponent, Senator Brickley Paiste (played to perfection by Gore Vidal), is an over inflated relic who can't keep up with the sneaky slickness of Roberts.
Filmed in a documentary style, the cameras love "Roberts," who seems to have come from a parallel universe where Pete Seeger or Bob Dylan fought against the unions and war protestors instead of with them. Roberts tries to come off as a homey good old boy, when in reality he is a self-made millionaire who has turned his campaign bus into a stock-brokerage on wheels and alludes to making his money on insider trades. At night, he doubles as a singer whose hits blast welfare mothers and those who "complain and complain and complain." He's backed by a shady ex-special forces money man (Alan Rickman, sharp as ever in a mix of Dick Cheney and Oliver North) and Fred Ward as a snake-oil slinging campaign manager.
Only a small lefty newspaper reporter, (Giancarlo Esposito from Do The Right Thing) Bugs Raplin, seems to be onto Roberts' and the backroom dealing that went into Roberts' rise to power. This is where "Bob Roberts" jumps into the balck side of politics and away from the satire. But it does look like a Crystal Ball at some points, like when Roberts blows off a Philadelphia TV reporter who presses him for answers by asking her "Are you a communist?" Substitute "Why do you hate America" and the seen could have been scripted for any year between 2002 and 2007. Much of the movie runs the same course of events with different people (Karl Rove springs to mind).
"Bob Roberts" is also interesting in the prolific cameos offered up. Helen Hunt and Susan Sarando both drop in, as does John Cusak as a pseudo-Saturday Night Live comic angered at a TV appearance for Roberts on their show. Country star Kelly Willis makes numerous appearances as Roberts' female duet partner. (The mock music videos are a hoot, too.) Best of the drop ins, a very young Jack Black as an obsessive Roberts junky. For a movie shot on a shoestring ($60,000) and even sold tickets to a "Dinner With Bob Roberts" to attract extras to a special scene, it looks wonderful.
The lack of a 4th star is due to the DVD transfer, which is scratchy and not as sharp as it could have been. Otherwise, "Bob Roberts" is on a par with other modern poli-satires as Wag the Dog or Bulworth.
Movie Review: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie should not be listed as a comedy, as it's far more a drama.The good: Definitely memorable for it's creepiness, and reality that something like this can and probably has happened.
The bad: it doesn't work as a documentary style film, as Best in Show or Waiting For Guffman later did.
The ugly: poor acting by many members of the supporting cast. The poor acting makes it even less believable as a documentary, because nobody in "real life" acts the way some of these characters do. At times it seems that the actors are amateurs practicing the scenes for the first time.
5/10
Movie Review: PULLEASE
Summary: 2 Stars
"Bob Roberts" was Tim Robbins first foray into political filmmaking. He draws on his family experience as traveling folk singers and fashions a story of a conservative, religious political candidate who sings family songs on the campaign trail. The film itself is good stuff, well acted and produced, but the message is clear: White conservative Christians are just frauds and cannot be trusted. One watches it and wonders what a truthful depiction of Jesse Jackson would look like. Or an inside look at Joseph P. Kennedy pulling the strings in Jack's Congressional and Senate campaigns? Or the inside deals that kept Teddy Kennedy in office after Mary Jo Kopechne was killed? How about Al Sharpton and the Tawana Brawley incident? "Bob Roberts" is one of those movies that you just watch and shake your head.Movie Review: Chilling little satire
Summary: 2 Stars
Although the script was written in the mid-1980s, "Bob Roberts" doesn't feel dated. Instead it feels like it was written today about the current state of American politics. The title character, Bob, is a conservative folk singer who runs for the U.S. Senate, but the cynical political machinations easily belong to politicians of any stripe. What struck me after watching this movie was how easily lead and deluded we are as citizens. While I thought that the message of the movie was right on target, I didn't care as much for the mock documentary style of the film. It kept me at a distance from the characters and, as a result, I didn't care as much about them as I might have done.Movie Review: Socialist dribble
Summary: 1 Stars
If you are a liberal or a socialist, pretty much any left wing paranoiac you will love this film.
It's entire purpose seems to be that of putting on screen all of the bile that spew from Robbins and Sarandon.
Do yourself a favor and don't waste your time.