RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy (2007) - Movie Review

On the eve of his triumphant California presidential primary win, RFK was struck down by an assassin's bullet. Sirhan Sirhan was apprehended, gun in hand, and is now serving a life sentence for murder. But the young Palestinian has no recollection of the events, and some evidence from the crime scene indicates that he was not acting alone.

BBC reporter Shane O'Sullivan's documentary feature about the killing of RFK considers the second assassination of a Kennedy leader into its political context, and dissects official records, reports and a court case where the evidence entered simply doesn't add up to the conclusion that Sirhan Sirhan shot and killed the presidential candidate by himself. O'Sullivan's research is thorough, credible and convincing.

The murder was committed in the Ambassador Hotel, in Los Angeles, shortly after RFK won the California primary and made his victory speech. While walking to his next appearance, RFK was ushered into a hotel pantry, where Sirhan Sirhan saw him, pulled a gun and shot. However, discrepancies in eyewitness reports about the shooter's distance from the victim, the shot's angle and other specifics can't be reconciled to prove that Sirhan Sirhan actually fired the fatal shot. Furthermore, investigators found, but were not able to explain the presence of, additional bullets lodged in the pantry walls and ceiling, and they received eyewitness reports that CIA agents, who were not supposed to be at the hotel, and several suspicious persons were present that evening. Additionally, Sirhan Sirhan has no recollection of the events, and several experts who've examined him say he was brainwashed and made a part of a larger--and as yet unspecified--group of people who may have been involved in killing RFK for as yet undefined political reasons. The CIA is one of the organizations clearly implicated in the conspiracy theories.

It was five years after the assassination of JFK, and the nation hadn't recovered from the shock of that event. Then, shortly before the second Kennedy assassination occurred, the Reverend Martin Luther King was slain.

O'Sullivan points out the similarity in the cases and, using archival footage ranging from Bobby's moving speech addressing Cleveland citizens after MLK's death to Sirhan Sirhan's mother claiming that her son was a CIA agent. There is also a demonstration in which a hypnotist puts a TV news reporter into a trance and suggests a preposterous political stance which disappears as soon the hypnotist pulls him out of the spell--without recollection of what he'd experienced until he watches the session on a TV monitor. The demonstration shows that Sirhan Sirhan may have been programmed to kill RFK. Significantly, authorities have denied the murderer's request to be regressed into a hypnotic state so he can find out whether he was under hypnotic suggestion.

On the other hand, investigators at the time found that Sirhan Sirhan's books had the slogan 'RFK Must Die' and similar messages noted in the margins and that history book passages relating to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and President McKinley were underlined.

There are dozens of books about the assassination of RFK, but seeing the actual footage of his speeches and stills of his lifeless body bring a surge of emotion that keeps your eyes riveted to the screen. RFK appears as a real hero, a person of great wisdom and charm who was dedicated to public service. You almost instantly realize the depth of our loss and can hardly help but wonder whether RFK as U.S. President could and would have made the world a better, more compassionate place.

Again, the underlying message of the film has to do with social and political paranoia--and there is an implicit suggestion that America's current policy towards Iraq and the widespread abusive treatment of Islamic peoples stems from the death of hope that occurred when RFK was killed.