If you'd like to know how it was in 1968, in the Vietnam era, prior to a different "surge" and the carpet-bombing of Cambodia and plans for "pacification" of villages and the "Vietnamization" of American occupying forces (should any of that sound familiar to you or not), check out the movie Bobby.

There's lots of great archival footage, skillfully weaved in with fiction born of literary license yet relevant for the times, that tells the story of a candidate who might have been - who would have changed the course of U.S. history in such a way that we wouldn't be in the mess we are in today. The Kennedy photos from the family archive during the credits are bonus icing on the cake.

Emilio Estevez needs to make more movies. His choices in this one were at times peculiar, but in the end powerful and effective. The story is told through the experiences of people involved with the Ambassador Hotel. You expect the stories to all come together at the end somehow, but some of them don't really.

On the other hand, his choice to not have an actor portray RFK and instead use archival footage for all RFK scenes was excellent. And a sad reminder of what might have been.

And his choice to not even acknowledge Sirhan B. Sirhan (who is up for parole again this year) was appropriate. And Estevez avoids indulging in the tin-foil-hat conspiracies surrounding RFK's assassination, unlike Oliver Stone who perhaps focused too much on that aspect while making an otherwise great move about JFK. (But who knows? Maybe Oliver Stone knows?)

Anyway, we can highly recommend Bobby. Especially for the over-fifty baby boomer crowd -- for nostalgia if nothing else -- but most of all as a reminder of what might have been and a lesson for the youngsters of what should be.