15, 111 mins

One of the big Oscar casualties, Bobby, turns the shooting of Robert F. Kennedy on June 5, 1968, into a gripping piece of reportage. By focusing on the tiffs and arguments between guests and staff at the Ambassador Hotel hours before the crime, Emilio Estevez paints an extraordinary picture of this fateful day.

The camera rarely leaves the building. We take the elevator up to the third floor to eavesdrop on a middle-aged couple (Martin Sheen and Helen Hunt) who have lost the point of their marriage. On the floor below a selfless young girl (Lindsay Lohan) is steeling herself to wed a classmate (Elijah Wood) so that he can dodge the Vietnam draft.

Tensions are sharpest in the frantic kitchen. William H. Macy’s general manager lays into Christian Slater for refusing to allow the overworked and miserable Mexicans time off to vote. Slater is terrific as the hotel Iago who exacts revenge by dishing the dirt.

The profound grip of Bobby is that it’s about the murder of a dream, an eloquent requiem for what might have been, and a tragic reminder of how much that bullet cost.

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