If you like Robert Altman and the spirit of hope, optimism, and true compassion represented by RFK, this film by Emilio Estevez (son of Martin Sheen) is for you.

It was not a large commercial success in large part because it doesn't fit neatly into a genre. Yet, it does a wonderful job -- with an all-star cast -- of capturing the mood and hope of the RFK run for the presidency and the day (June 4, 1968) he won the California primary -- and was assassinated at the now demolished Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

Estevez adopts the Altman technique of unfolding the film's narrative through interwoven stories of people who were involved in big and small ways with the events that unfolded at the Ambassador Hotel on that fateful day.

It is not a morbid film. Rather it focuses on how individuals of common and celebrity stature were caught up in the hope and promise of the Kennedy campaign. It is, at its heart, about our daily lives and how we came to envision a brighter future through an individual who might lead our government.

Documentary footage of Bobby Kennedy is sprinkled throughout the movie, providing the backdrop for the personal stories that unfold, with the now defunct Ambassador Hotel as the backdrop.

It is a thoughtful, moving film that takes its time to focus on the little events in such a momentous day, on class, race and wealth divisions, and on the great expectation that RFK offered to a nation yearning for healing at the height of the Vietnam War and with the Civil Rights Movement not yet fully embraced by the nation (as the battles for issues such as affirmative action are still being fought to this day).

Not preachy or didactic, it is entertaining and "Altmanesque." It reminds us of how much was taken from us by the loss of RFK, Martin Luther King, and JFK.

Violence is the dark side of the American dream that steals so much hope and squanders our opportunity to achieve our greatness.