Bob Roberts (1992)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

People are voting emotionally.

As Good As It Gets

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

A conservative folk singer, Bob Roberts, turns his hand to politics, running for the US Senate. He sets about organising rallies, singing songs to get his message across. He is not above using dirty tricks and smears to gain an advantage over his opponent. Meanwhile, a reporter is investigating Roberts's potential involvement in a drug ring.Written by, directed by and starring Tim Robbins, this is a brilliant satire on US politics. Quite accurate in depicting the lengths politicians will go to for power, and quite funny at times in how ridiculous they look doing it.Very relevant, at any time. Always good to be reminded of the type of people that are asking you to vote for them.Great ending - wonderful twist. Very powerful and profound.

"Bob Roberts" is a hilarious and scathing satire that pokes fun at right wing politicians perhaps a little too harshly-but it's still great (and sometimes depressingly accurate) fun. If your politics are anti- Republican/conservative, than you will likely have a ball watching this movie! Right wingers may be a little offended by it, and I can't blame them all too much, since it is so critical of their beliefs, and after a shocking final twist, the main characters are all revealed to be even more scummy than they originally seemed. But, at times, "Bob Roberts" also pokes fun at the media, extreme left wingers (not sure if this satire was intentional, though, but it seems like it), and just the nature politics in general.Tim Robbins writes, directs, and stars in this film-and does a great job, leading a cast of many fine and interesting actors that range from Ray Wise to Jack Black.This is definitely an entertaining watch for those who agree with its politics. For others, it is perfect rage fuel.

"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?

The strength of the film is the very skillful "documentary" characterization of neocon Republican campaigning a couple of years before Gingrich's successful "Contract with America" in 1994 and a decade before the much much more successful Cheney / Rove / Rumsfeld Republican Revolution in 2000. (The difference between the real G. Bush and the fictional B. Roberts is that Roberts thinks for himself - Bush just reads his folksy script instead of writing it.) The weakness of the film is the sentimental romanticizing of conspiracy-minded Left interventionist / martyrs. The best of America is its conceptually muddy but essentially good-natured, practical middle - you'll know America is back on track and in the real world when you can't tell the difference between the Dems and Reps.