In all likelihood, a new documentary about Robert Pattinson titled Robsessed is a total cash grab and a waste of time. But let’s not completely toss aside the potential of this film, which UK-based distributor Revolver Entertainment has acquired and will release to DVD in the U.S. around the time that The Twilight Saga: New Moon opens in theaters.

I’m reminded of all the late night commercials I used to see for Biggie & Tupac years ago. The way the film was being sold sure made it seem at the time to be as cheap and disregardable as any of those compilation CD sets advertised in the same late hours. I never would have guessed the film was made by such an interesting filmmaker as Nick Broomfield, who I now place within my top five favorite documentarians. If only I’d been a bigger hip hop enthusiast I might have discovered Broomfield earlier than I did.

Likewise, if I’d been a greater Nirvana fan I might have been turned onto the filmmaker through his prior doc Kurt and Courtney (it wasn’t until years later when I wrote a paper on first-person documentaries that I acquainted myself with Broomfield’s films). And speaking of Kurt Cobain, I’m sure some of his young fans rented Kurt Cobain About a Son only to wind up interested in non-traditional documentary and the further work of director A.J. Schnack.

Could Robsessed really have been directed by a true talent like Broomfield and Schnack? It’s hard to imagine, especially since neither the news release nor Revolver’s website reveals the filmmaker behind this documentary. But since the film may concentrate primarily on Pattinson’s obsessed fanbase, it could at least be as interesting as docs like Trekkies and We Are Wizards, which deal with devout followers of the Star Trek and Harry Potter franchises, respectively.

I wouldn’t write Robsessed off so much as I’d say to ignore the film’s DVD-set companion, a pre-Twilight RPattz movie titled The Haunted Airmen.

Check out what other film bloggers are saying about the documentary after the jump:

• Mandi Bierly at Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch is disappointed that the doc may be more about Pattinson than his “Robsessed” fans:
  

  I’m much more interested in the fans who consider themselves “Robsessed” than Rob. I want to go inside their lives. How does a man who’s given them only a few hours of entertainment come to fill their lives 24/7? How, in the age of the Web, when there’s constant updates on Pattinson, do they handle a day when there’s (gulp) silence? How do they decide they’re going to travel to a different city to try to catch a glimpse of him on set?

• Elisabeth Rappe at Cinematical is hoping the doc answers a few questions she has about RPattz:
  

  Hopefully it will take some time and examine all his likes, dislikes, solve what’s going on with his hair, or reveal just what he was doing at my downtown Denver fish-and-chips place. (I’m not kidding. There’s a signed photo of him at the restaurant that thanks them personally for “the best fish and chips!”)

• Kevin Jagernauth at The Playlist assumes the style of documentary is a cheap one:
  

  We can only imagine the film, which Revolver intends to distribute on DVD in both the US and the UK in November to coincide with the release of “New Moon,” will be nothing more than some hastily cobbled together stock footage, interviews with sub-Perez Hilton types and absolutely nothing from the actor or his camp.

• Adam Rosenberg at MTV Movies Blog believes Pattinson is too young to have a documentary that’d be of any interest to anybody:
  

  Even if I were a die-hard Twilighter, I’d have a hard time looking at “Robsessed” as anything more than a blatant cash-in. The “Twilight” saga on film isn’t even half-complete yet, and this doc feels like it’s coming far too soon to contain any earth-shaking new information. Here’s hoping I’m wrong, that a “broadcast quality biography” of a 23 year old kid amounts to more than just a fan-serving fluff piece. Still, I have to say… my cynic-sense is tingling.

• Terri Schwartz at Hollywood Crush can’t imagine the documentary having any exclusive material nor anything else worth the price tag:
  

  My advice is to save your $20. “Robsessed” will show you Rob’s “path from a young schoolboy, to his early modelling and acting jobs, all the way through to landing his dazzling role in the Twilight saga,” but it’s not going to tell you any more about the Brit you really want to know than your supermarket tabloid aisle.

• Krystal Clark at ScreenCrave compares this film to other cheap celebsploitation goods:
  

  This documentary is the equivalent to those “Life Story” books I always see at the grocery store. They’re never centered on people who’ve had long careers, it’s always the flavor of the week. I’ve seen one of Robert, Miley Cyrus, and even the Strauss twins. What’s their life going to include besides the trials and tribulations of puberty?

• Lane Brown at Vulture jokes that easy cash grabs like Robsessed are good for the economy:
  

  [Revolver is] planning a release to coincide with New Moon’s next month, and they’ll sell it packaged with DVD copies of 2006’s Haunted Airmen, a movie Pattinson made before he became the world’s most salable person. Then, everyone who works at Revolver, including the interns’ janitorial staff, will retire to their own private tropical islands.