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Rating:  - A TOO TRUE BLUEPRINT FOR THE ROVE/BUSH CAMPAIGN TRAIL
watch this film and be afraid
very
very
afraid
This is where we are now
THe parody of the Reagan staged "shooting" is incredible and bold, the send up of the phoney "leftist" nature of Saturday Night Live is right on target, the rest is just plain scary it is so, so true.
even the manipulation of GOd and religion for anti-religious and uncharitable politics of greed . . . this we see today.
THe reference ot his sheep-bots as his soldiers, ready to die in a war for oil . . .
Bob Roberts is a prophet. Also get his EMbedded. And Bulworth.
Rating:  - Bob Roberts: Maybe Even More Relevant Fourteen Years Later?
Bob Roberts is as relevant today as it was some fourteen years ago. Converting ideological outsiders does not seem to be its primary goal. It is echo chamber entertainment meant only for the already committed leftist. Needless to point out, this is not exactly surprising. Tim Robbins, after all, who starred, directed, and even sang in the film is one of Hollywood's best know radical personalities. To be blunt, he is a less talented Oliver Stone. The script turns conservatives into cartoon characters. There is no attempt whatsoever to try understanding their world view. They are simplistically portrayed as fascists seeking any excuse to justify taking over the country. Bob Roberts (Tim Robbins) is a Republican U.S. senatorial candidate hoping to defeat incumbent Pennsylvanian Democrat Brickley Paiste (Gore Vidal). He is vile and not above using dirty tricks to achieve his aims. As the story unfolds, Roberts is well behind in the polls. A leftist journalist portrayed by Giancarlo Esposito tries to further derail Roberts' campaign by revealing his drug running and other criminal activities. Will he be successful? Can a journalist representing a small left-wing publication take down the rich and powerful? You will not be glued to your seat due to the suspense, but the story line isn't a complete bore. If nothing else, you will see countless well known motion picture stars come and go throughout the story.
Did you ever wonder why the far-left became unglued over the Iraqi liberation of 2003? Well, Bob Roberts should help enlighten you. It makes numerous references to Desert Storm, our first invasion of Iraq in 1991. The conflict was allegedly a conspiracy concocted by the devious right-wing "National Security Council." This group really runs the country, and not our elected leaders. The Republican administration of George Bush 41 only wanted to dominate the region. Our greedy military-industrial complex had to be satisfied, and would not take no for an answer. Saddam Hussein was not another Adolph Hitler---but a minor league dictator. Senator Brickley Paiste dismisses him as merely another member of "the villain of the month club."
David Thomson
Flares into Darkness
Rating: - Chilling little satire
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.
Rating: - Overrated
I first saw "Bob Roberts" in 1992, when it came out and when I was younger and further to the left than I am now, and I thought it was terrific. Looking back on it, I'm amazed at how easily manipulated I was.
The movie purports to be an exposé of how conservatives exploit the media to pander to voters' baser emotions. But "Bob Roberts" does just that to pander to the paranoia and hysteria of the strident left, which has become ever more strident and paranoid since George W. Bush became president (see some of the five-star reviews of this movie, which use words like "Nazipuglican" to describe the writers' political opponents).
Various snipes of mine about the movie:
- Its actual hero, the "muckraking" left-wing journalist, can be found ranting on countless Marxist blogs these days. Robbins has the character murdered, but in real life the CIA has higher priorities than killing off loons who discredit themselves with their own lunacy.
- The preachy right-wing folk songs that Roberts sings are matched in their wooden polemics and poor musicianship by any number of preachy left-wing folk songs that can be heard on college radio stations and in coffeehouses across the U.S.
- The television producer's liberal assistant who shuts off all the electricity in the TV studio where Roberts is about to perform is no heroine. She's a censor, pure and simple, just like the campus morons who attend speeches by those with whom they disagree in order to drown them out with shouting, chanting, and booing. No wonder the audience in the [People's Republik of] Cambridge, MA movie theatre in which I first saw "Bob Roberts" gave her a hearty round of applause.
- But the part of the film that gets me the angriest, 13 years later, is the exchange between one of Roberts' campaign workers, a black man, and a liberal black woman. She essentially accuses him of being an "Uncle Tom." He asks her mildly, "Can't black people have differences of opinion?" She snaps back, "Oh, you're still black?" This mindset, promulgated by the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of this world, has done more in the last 30 years to keep black Americans poor than any Klansman has...and it's still going on, as can be seen by the left's ugly snipes at Condi Rice and, most recently, at Lt. Gov. Michael Steele of Maryland.
I'm giving "Bob Roberts" two stars, not one, because it did have its moments, and because was in fact something of a pioneer in Hollywood in illustrating the mechanisms behind political media machines, long before "Wag the Dog" came out. But if you want to see thoughtful moviemaking from Robbins, rent "Dead Man Walking."
Rating: - A Conservative who LOVES this movie!!!!!!!!
This is a great movie that everyone should see. I'm a Conservative and so are all of my friends and they love this movie. We don't see this movies as a "Republicans are Bad movie" thats dumb. This movie is just what a movie should be, funny and entertaining. We all LOVE the songs because they are not only great, but true too.
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