A) A historical snapshot of the turbulent Vietnam era;

B) An inside look at presidential politics; or

C) A portrait of a man struggling to get out of the impossibly long shadow of his martyred brother.

Any of these options could have made for a reasonably successful movie. Unfortunately, they chose D) All of the above. The result is a 90-minute piece that never settles on what it wants to be, and never does anything particularly well.

RFK leaps right into Robert Kennedy's life and political career in 1963, at the time of the assassination of his brother John F. Kennedy. Starring actor Linus Roache puts in a good effort to make "Bobby" into a three-dimensional character, but he's sorely hampered by a script that's alternately choppy and sappy. We follow Kennedy for the next five years, with no particular narrative structure other than "we're following Kennedy's political career": here is where we see the conflict between the story's attempt to show politics at work and its attempt to create a character-based story. The one thing that RFK manages to convey with some effectiveness is how he felt oppressed by the hero-worship of his dead brother, to the point that it undermined his efforts to have a political life of his own. However, the film falters in showing Kennedy's personal or political response to this: what we get on the one hand is a series of rather hokey moments in which he sees and hears his dead brother at various moments in his life, and on the other hand, a few scenes in which RFK deals with political machinations that seem to come out of nowhere.

The film makes a strong effort to serve as a snapshot of the years from 1963-1968, with real news footage of the Vietnam war, protests, race riots, and so on liberally interspersed with the film narrative. The film attempts to show its dramatized events as part of real history through the rather heavy-handed use of black-and-white fades at various points to blend the archival footage with the film. Unfortunately, the whole thing ends up feeling simply manipulative. Watch Kennedy visit the ghetto! Watch clips of race riots! Isn't he shaping up to be a great leader? Hooray! The film closes with RFK's assassination while on an election campaign; I think we're intended to mourn for the loss of a star on the ascent, but the ending, complete with drawn-out funeral images, is too crassly manipulative to ring true on an emotional level. The only message that I carried away from the film is that tragically dead heroes are the best kind to make movies about, as they won't do anything inconveniently un-heroic later in life.

As a last comment, I had been hoping to see a fair amount of James Cromwell in this film, as he plays Lyndon Johnson, but it effectively turns out to be a bit part. Overall, it's a bland and forgettable effort.

The DVD

Video

RFK is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, which appears to be the original format for this made-for-television movie. The image quality is acceptable overall; it looks best in well-lit indoor shots, where the accurate colors and clean print make for an attractive image. Anything that takes place outdoors looks considerably worse, with heavy edge enhancement causing distinct haloing effects; indoor but dimly-lit shots also suffer from excessively heavy contrast.

Audio

The Dolby 2.0 track is nothing to write home about, but it gets the job done. Dialogue is generally clear and understandable, and there's no apparent background noise in the track.

Extras

There are no special features on this DVD.

Final thoughts

History buffs who are particularly fascinated by the "Kennedy dynasty" may find this rather lackluster made-for-television film worth watching as a rental; its only real merit is that it's probably the only dramatization of any part of Robert F. Kennedy's life. As a film, though, RFK falls flat: not through want of trying, but through simple ineffectiveness all around. For viewers in general, I recommend just skipping it.