June 1968 must have been an incredible time in America. Ideas of sexual and racial equality had entered the political arena and there was a huge vocal swell against the war in Vietnam. Revolutionary change was within everyone’s sights and Bobby Kennedy was poised to lead it. Writer/ director Emilio Estevez creates fictional characters and juxtaposes them against actual footage from that one day in 1968 when the actions of one person drastically changed history. The guests and workers at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles find themselves at the epicentre of an event that would change American politics forever.
Latino and African American kitchen staff debate racist inequality while the kitchen manager (Christian Slater) refuses to allow them time off to vote. Because Robert F Kennedy is holding a function at the hotel that evening, hotel manager (William H Macy) is under a considerable amount of pressure, and his wife (Sharon Stone) is about to put him under more pressure. A young woman (Lindsay Lohen) is marrying a classmate she barely knows (Elijah Wood) to save him from going to war. The cabaret singer (Demi Moore) and resident hippie (Aston Kutcher) write themselves off with drugs and alcohol whilst a couple of retired hotel workers (Anthony Hopkins and Harry Belafontaine) watch all goings on.
About two thirds of the way through this film I concluded that while I was enjoying the great performances from the huge ensemble cast, I wasn’t going to be taking much away at the end of the film. Then the last act hit with an incredible intensity and I realised that the characters each embodied the social and personal issues of the time, and the dreams and hopes of a generation were about to come to an end. This powerful film is not about an assassination, but a legacy that was left to burn in the hearts of those who remained.
