March 05, 2002

Movie Review: Bob Roberts (Robbins)

Bob Roberts is a fictional documentary about the 1990 election of a Pennsylvania senator. It started off interesting as you learn about the history of the title character - a rich stockbroker turned folksinger who has now turned to politics. But it starts setting him up as a really evil character, which becomes clumsier and clumsier as the movie continues. If it was trying to make a political point about the forces influencing government it lost its impact by having those forces be represented by such a thoroughly evil person. I doubt that is why people become involved in those things, and it trivializes the problem by saying "don't elect evil people". Some of the folk songs that he sings were quite funny, though, and there are some good scenes, especially earlier on in the movie. Overall, though, I would be hard pressed to recommend this.

Posted by babar at March 5, 2002 09:53 PM