Bobby wishes it were Robert Altman's Nashville. Writer/director Emilio Estevez's star-studded feature is a quilt of a dozen small stories all taking place at the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel on the eve and in the location of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination. But as the movie moves along, it becomes apparent just how useful Altman's trademark overlapping style of dialogue is in scenarios like this.

In an Altman movie, people are natural and what they say doesn't seem forced; here in Bobby, the opposite occurs. Much of the dialogue feels canned, and almost every mini-story has at least one moment where one character says something profound or meaningful to another. Anyhow, this shouldn't be surprising -- the movie is trying very hard to be profound and isn't shy about it. Its idea is to present a cross-section of America at the time of the assassination, an America faced with ugly realities against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the turbulent '60s, pinning its idealistic hopes on the idealistic senator and presidential primary candidate, hopes that were about to be given another disheartening beating.

Given the movie's unsubtle approach, what is surprising involves how it comes together nicely at the bottom of the ninth. Perhaps the characters have settled in after almost two hours; perhaps an appeal to our own idealism, especially in a situation that draws an easy parallel to our own times, is more effective than we might've expected. In any case, its finishing sweep has some force to it and mostly rescues what is otherwise an awkward but well-intentioned movie.

That said, Nashville -- to which Bobby strikingly, and uncomfortably, bears many similarities in tone, style, structure, and thematic material -- still did all of this better. Bobby could stand to learn a lot from it. (Capsule review)

(Released by The Weinstein Company and rated "R" for language, drug content and a scene of violence.)

Review also posted at www.windowtothemovies.com.