Bob Roberts

Bob Roberts is a 1992 film directed and written by Tim Robbins. It is a satirical faux-documentary on the rise of a right-wing candidate for the United States Senate. The main character, Bob Roberts, played by Robbins, leaves his hippie parents to enlist in a military academy. Fueled by a personal fortune he amasses on Wall Street and a strong public image from his music, which proposes a conservative vision in a rebel's persona, he embarks on a bid for the position of Senator from Pennsylvania. The film portrays the American political process in a less-than-favorable light, suggesting that shady deals, hypocrisy and deceit are mainstays of the Republican Party.

Plot Summary

Tim Robbins stars as Bob Roberts, a U.S. Senate candidate from Pennsylvania who cleverly co-opts the image of the 1960s rebel — he sings folk songs (offering direct, catchy sendups of classic Bob Dylan songs and album covers), he rides a motorcycle — but twists them to serve and promote "conservative" values (mostly represented here as an obsession with money.) The Roberts character is a master of image manipulation.

Related Topics:
Tim Robbins - 1960s - Folk song - Bob Dylan

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We later meet Roberts' opponent, Democratic incumbent Brickley Paiste (a blustering, clumsy character well played by Gore Vidal), but then the tone of the film changes.

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Where Roberts is portrayed in extremes as a slick rat, Paiste is simply a beleaguered old man who wants to talk about the issues but finds himself quickly on the defensive as he's falsely implicated in a sex scandal. While one might pity him for his mishaps, you believe he's simply too out of touch to connect with voters on current issues.

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As politics is fertile ground for satire, with neither liberals nor conservatives cornering the market on spin, hypocrisy, sleaze tactics, pandering, extremism, supercilious reaction to polling, or demonizing opponents. Bob Roberts offers a balanced, thorough attack that sends both the left and the right running for cover.

Related Topics:
Satire - Liberal - Conservative - Extremism

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Roberts plays the conservative/folk role model convincingly, almost sympathetically. In contrast the apparent protaganist, Bugs Raplin (Giancarlo Esposito), the radical investigative reporter, gets close to exposing Roberts in a shady housing deal, yet he's portrayed as extreme and threatening, leading the viewer to revulsion.

Related Topics:
Protaganist - Giancarlo Esposito - Radical

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In watching the film, it's not easy to take sides; this may be why the movie endures nearly 15 years after its release, and bears repeated watching.

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Bob Roberts is well-shot, well-acted by a star-studded cast (the film was reportedly done independently; everyone working for scale), including Alan Rickman and cameos by Susan Sarandon, John Cusack, Peter Gallagher, Fred Ward, Helen Hunt, James Spader, and a sharp early appearance by High Fidelity scene-stealer Jack Black.

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Artisan's special-edition DVD is feature-packed, with a good transfer in the original full-frame (1.33:1) and Dolby 2.0 Surround. Also on board are three commentary tracks ? one with Robbins, another with Robbins and Vidal together, and a third track with Counterpunch editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, which has nothing to do with the movie but rather is a detailed discussion of CIA-related drug conspiracies.

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