Bob Roberts

In the tradition of This Is Spinal Tap, producer/ director/ star Tim Robbins' Bob Roberts is a satire disguised as a documentary. Robbins plays the titular Roberts, a wealthy, well-connected young man running for a senatorial seat in Pennsylvania. On the surface, Roberts is an ingratiating ...more

Released just before the start of the Clinton presidency, Bob Roberts was a prescient pseudo-documentary take on the corruption of American politics by the media-savvy celebrity culture. As the second-term Clinton scandals broke, Wag the Dog, Primary Colors, and Bulworth took art-imitating-current-events irony even further, but Bob Roberts paved the way. The first writing/directing effort of actor Tim Robbins, the film stars Robbins as a self-promoting folk-singer who lauches a cynical, dirty ...more