Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

stosthomas Recently, I had a chance to re-visit this film after not seeing it for a while, and to me this film has acquired some new meaning since it was released back in the early 90's. Our country has seen quite a bit of political upheaval since the release of this film, and when you read the current headlines dealing with the new, extreme version of the Republican/Tea Party, you can't help but think that this film was far head of it's time in predicting the new wave of conservatives that we are currently seeing in this country. You could almost imagine Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, as well as Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and all of the other extreme right/Teaparty personalities being in this film. When you look at Jack Black's character staring blankly into the camera while he and his brothers profess their love for Bob Roberts, you can almost transpose them into the faces of the current Teaparty Republicans. And the speech that Giancarlo Esposito's character Bugs Raplin gives towards the end of the film about how corporate media doesn't want to tell you the truth almost accurately predicts what we are seeing now with many media outlets being owned by corporations such as GE, Comcast, Time Warner and others who dilute the information we see every day on TV.For me, this film was perhaps more visionary than originally intended, and in future years might be looked at not as political satire, but as a very keen predictor of what has happened to our political process and the watering down of the corporate news media.

janbaronhunt We gave this film an excruciating 42 minutes. Even though we're liberal Democrats, Tim Robbins just wasn't convincing as a conservative.Richard Dreyfuss, also a liberal in real life, was able to play a delightfully sleazy conservative politician in "Dave", but Robbins obviously found it hard to play a character so different from his own personal values. It was clear that he himself didn't like the character he was playing - he seemed to be holding so much back. Even worse, the pace was so slow that after 42 minutes we didn't seem to know any more about the plot than we did after the first five!Maybe the film gets more interesting, but those 42 minutes felt like 42 hours. Rent "Dave" instead.

blubb06 "Times are changing back, times are changing back, times are changing back today...", sings ultra-right-wing politician/folksinger Bob Roberts. Grandmommies & -daddies who know just-who-the-heck Bob Dylan was might remember his song "The times, they are a-changing" — yeah, that was waaaaay back when Grandmommy & Granddaddy wore flowers, made free love and smoked marijuana to make their hair grow faster. And peace, No-to-Vietnam, civil rights and all that hot sh*t, in the year I was born (but not in the USA). Somebody else pointed out the Dylan documentary "Don't Look Back", from which several scenes were derived — including the one where Bob Roberts and his blonde co-singer practice their hymn "We're marching for self-interest" while Bob checks his stocks on his laptop. In 1967, Joan Baez sang "Pretty Polly".Polly, pretty Polly, come and go along with me / Before we get married some pleasure to seekHe led her over mountains and valleys so deep / Polly misjudged him and she began to weepSayin' Willie, Oh Willie, I'm afraid of your ways / The way you've been ramblin' you'd lead me astrayHe said, Polly, pretty Polly, your guess is about right / I dug on your grave the best part of last nightI don't know much about US politics, although I sometimes wonder why they apparently have only two political parties since at least 200 years. But "Bob Roberts" is not an American movie, although it portrays the rise of a pure-bred American Hitler. Those two parties exist virtually everywhere, at least in every Western "democracy", and although they take turns every few years and have other names, the underlying power structure is the same, as their politics are increasingly the same.This is a movie for the grassroots, a socio-political comment and a satire. It's supposed to stimulate the little gray cells, look at our leaders and our TV screens and ask, are we getting what we signed up for? What is the truth, and do I want to know?

mdavis-53 If you think this movie is not commentary you've missed the point entirely. Satire is commentary. It is always commentary. This movie is a comment on all those politicians who do what Bob Roberts does in this movie--and if he doesn't resemble a Republican or two we have come too well to know in this country, well, then, I suppose you may as well believe you can have satire without commentary. And there's a bridge that might interest you.Other than, that it's a very effective satire and hits its mark 9 times out of ten. Gore Vidal is...well, he's Gore Vidal in this movie, and that's quite enough, of course.And Tim Robbins? Well, that's my point. Let's just say this: he's not Republican!