Bob Roberts

"Don't smoke crack. It's a ghetto drug."

The key to mockumentaries is playing the central character straight. And, indeed, Tim Robbins' satiric mockumentary Bob Roberts (1992) gets this idea right, which is the whole key to the film's success. Moreover, though the film seemed like a mockumentary on national politics at the time of its release, Robbins' picture seems more prescient and incendiary today than ever before.

Followed by a documentary film crew, Bob Roberts (Tim Robbins) is a rightwing folk musician who runs for the Pennsylvanian senate against incumbant Senator Brickley Paiste (Gore Vidal). Taking his message to the common people, where Roberts woos citizens with folk songs that are best described as a blend of sincerity and utter stupidity (see the beautifully done Drugs are Bad song), Roberts secures his votes. When Roberts’ campaign manager Lukas Hart III (Alan Rickman) comes under fire for illegal operations in the past, though, a plan is hatched that guarantees Roberts’ electoral win.

There’s nothing like an assassination attempt to fuel Roberts’ electoral win. Yet although this attempt is seemingly played straight, the film’s lone muck-raking reporter (Giancarlo Esposito), who was charged with the assassination attempt, reveals that the only shots that were fired were actually fired at the ground by Roberts’ own crew. As a result, the spinal paralysis that Roberts sustained is merely a contrivance manufactured to garner sympathy and support.

If Robbins plays this with a wink, the whole picture would crumble. As it is, the tone is always straight and the secondary characters (television reporters and media) provide the majority of the humor. Yet to state that Roberts himself isn’t hilarious in his own right is also a fallacy. Robbins plays Roberts so straight that his whole characterization becomes howlingly funny. Roberts’ return letter to a 7-year-old who sent him a valentine is wonderful, and the folk songs are such a caricature that they too rule. Yet the film’s final scenes shift the tone to a genuine questioning of justice against tyranny, the nature of sacrifice for truth, and whether the documentarian will reveal the secret that he alone knows.

The cameos of the film are wonderful, and a young Jack Black steals every scene that he is in, but in many ways this film exists as a harbinger to the national politics of today, where politicians’ soundbites override common sense, and where slander and speculation surplant proof. Bob Roberts is a thoroughly fascinating film where the quality is as underrated as the film. Highly recommended.

Bob Roberts: 8/10