Movies - Bob Roberts

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	Movies - Bob Roberts

Bob Roberts is a 1992 film directed and written by Tim Robbins. It is a satirical faux-documentary on the rise of a right-wing candidate for the United States Senate. The main character, Bob Roberts, played by Robbins, leaves his hippie parents to enroll in a military academy. Fueled by a personal fortune he amasses on Wall Street and a strong public image from his music, which proposes a conservative vision in a rebel's persona, he embarks on a bid for the position of Senator from Pennsylvania. The film portrays the U.S. political process in a less-than-favorable light, suggesting that shady deals, hypocrisy and deceit are mainstays of U.S. politics.

Bob Roberts is based on a short segment film of the same name and character that Robbins did for the television sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live on December 13, 1986.

Plot summary

Tim Robbins stars as Bob Roberts, a U.S. Senate candidate from Pennsylvania who cleverly co-opts the image of the 1960s rebel — he rides a motorcycle, he sings folk songs (offering direct, catchy sendups of classic Bob Dylan songs and album covers), but twists them to serve and promote "conservative" values (mostly represented here as an obsession with money). The Roberts character is a master of image manipulation.

We later meet Roberts' opponent, Democratic incumbent Brickley Paiste (a comparatively blustering, clumsy character well played by Gore Vidal), but then the tone of the film changes.

Where Roberts is portrayed in extremes as a slick rat, Paiste is simply a beleaguered old man who wants to talk about the issues but finds himself quickly on the defensive as he's falsely implicated in a sex scandal.

The movie represents a stinging attack on the politics of piousness serving to mask greed and corruption (Roberts' anti-drugs organisation is implicated in a Savings & Loans scam).

Roberts plays the conservative/folk role model convincingly, almost sympathetically. In contrast the apparent protagonist, Bugs Raplin (Giancarlo Esposito), the radical investigative reporter, gets close to exposing Roberts in a shady housing deal, yet he's portrayed as extreme and threatening, leading the viewer to revulsion. It's what happens to him that helps to provide the sinister edge to the movie.

The movie is surprisingly subtle, bearing repeated viewing, with more details emerging if you hang onto every word during sometimes-frantic set-pieces. Bob Roberts is well-shot, well-acted by a star-studded cast (the film was reportedly done independently; everyone working for scale), including Alan Rickman and cameos by Susan Sarandon, John Cusack, Peter Gallagher, Fred Ward, Helen Hunt, James Spader, and a sharp early appearance by High Fidelity scene-stealer Jack Black.

Artisan's special-edition DVD is feature-packed, with a good transfer in the original full-frame (1.33:1) and Dolby 2.0 Surround. Also on board are three commentary tracks — one with Robbins, another with Robbins and Vidal together, and a third track with Counterpunch editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, which has nothing to do with the movie but rather is a detailed discussion of CIA-related drug conspiracies.

Trivia

Gore Vidal portrays Roberts's incumbent Democratic opponent. The ensemble cast includes Giancarlo Esposito
, Alan Rickman
, Harry J. Lennix
, David Strathairn
, James Spader
, Helen Hunt
, Peter Gallagher
, a very young Jack Black
, Robbins's longtime companion Susan Sarandon
, Fred Ward
, Fisher Stevens
, John Cusack
, Bob Balaban
and Jeremy Piven
, some in very brief cameo appearances.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Bob Roberts ]

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