The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)

Handle with care--this one's a bomb! Director Brian De Palma seemed an unlikely choice to transfer Tom Wolfe's mammoth bestseller-- a vibrantly satiric story about race, politics, and greed in 1980s New York--to the screen. In this case, the first impression was correct. Made with a tin ear to everything that made the book so real, the movie gets it wrong every time, starting with casting Tom Hanks in the central role (which, as anyone with brains knew, should have been played by William Hurt). Move along to the choice of Bruce Willis for the sneaky British tabloid journalist and, well, need I say more? As stylish as any De Palma film, this story of a Wall Street broker whose extramarital shenanigans trigger a racial incident that becomes front-page news gets no help from Michael Cristofer's tone-deaf script. After watching it, read Julie Salomon's behind-the-scenes book about its making, The Devil's Candy, which is much more entertaining. --Marshall Fine Amazon.com

The truth shall set you free, and if it doesn't,... LIE LIKE HELL!

I saw this film in the theaters as a teenager having not read or even heard of the book. I really enjoyed it because of the actors, the characters and their backstories. I just love satire. I hadn't even heard of Reverand Al. Now, this movie still amuses me, but on more levels. A year after I saw this film, I took a cinema class in college, where the instructor blamed the trashing of the film on its New York City premiere, where the local reviewers panned the movie for airing their city's dirty laundry. Whether civic pride or an unachievable high standard created by the prestige of the novel are to blame, this film got a bad rap. There's a lot in the film and lots to like, now as then. February 10, 2008

What a Mess.

So sad. A great 5 star novel turned into a 1 star movie. Totally miscast in every character. If anyone in a Holywood studio is out there, this is one movie that needs to be REMADE, so that its true to the novel. February 3, 2008

De Palma doesn't do straight satire.

Personally, I watched the movie without having read the book, which could be seen as both a good and a bad thing. On one hand, it allows me to judge the film as exactly that - a film, with no other conflicting point of reference to cloud my opinions. On the other, it means I'm pretty much ignorant as to whether or not the screen version succeeds or fails in living up to its story's potential. 'The Bonfire Of The Vanities' is a good film: nothing more, nothing less. So why, then, was it so universally slated by critics at the time of its big screen release? The answer, it would seem, is the overwhelming popularity of the piece of literature it was based on, Tom Wolfe's novel of the same name.

This movie is played on the borderline "tragedy and comic" the result, in my opinion, is a very interesting mix of ironic situations. Sherman McCoy (Tom Hanks) is on top of his game and is the top dog in one of the top financial firms in the city. He has money in spades, a socialite wife, a Park Avenue apartment, a mistress and a very nice car. While out with that same mistress Maria (Griffith) in that same expensive car, Sherman takes a wrong turn and ends up in the Bronx where, in a moment of panic at being confronted by crowds of African Americans, Maria suddenly hits a black man and they drive off back to normal white society. Sadly for Sherman, this minor incident escalates when the boy goes into a coma and his car is identified as the one involved, Add to this a DA who desperately needs to win the ethnic vote by prosecuting a rich white person and a journalist who, desperate to get off skid row, talks up the story with a series of sensationalist headlines that twist the truth. As these factors all come into play, Sherman's tidy, rich, world starts to crumble.

Griffith is great along with Tom even though he didn't win anything his performance is good. Bruce Willis is very funny as an alcoholic reporter who follows this New York scandal, I know we all like Bruce in action movies but he does well on this job. Morgan Freeman really catches your attention as an no-nonsense judge, seem suited to their roles. Really the plot in this movie is odd but watch it you see how it develops and relates to the lifestyles of the characters. I know that Brian DePalma has done better than this but remember many times a novel doesn't do well on the big screen. Again, "The Bonfire of the Vanities" was an '80s story based on a Tom Wolfe bestseller so don't blame Brian he done as good a job possible the cast had plenty of talent and that's why this movie is great and out of the ordinary.
January 7, 2008

Classic book, average movie

Inspired by but with a story and ending distinct from Tom Wolfe's novel by the same title - The Bonfire of the Vanities - fails to attain the heights scaled by the book. This shortfall in quality is by no means a reflection on the quality of acting or script but a glaring manifestation of the fact that it is next to impossible to communicate in cinematic form the details that a book can capture. The audience that has not read the book is likely to find the movie more engrossing but the overwhelming reaction is of less than fulfilled expectations.

Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis play their parts with candor but their characterization does not attain glory because of the limitations implicit in the attempt to convert a masterpiece into a movie. The protagonist of The Bonfire of the Vanities is a hero and a mere mortal and a villain in curious measures, a character so contrived that even an actor of Tom Hank's caliber fails to portray the complexity in an effective manner. Bruce Willis though has an easier task of enacting a drunkard, sometimes incompetent but finally lucky journalist and he plays his part with usual flair but no distinction.

The script has been modified from the novel to provide an ending more becoming of a Hollywood production, with the hero not ending in the predicament where he found himself in the book. However while the novel had the readers dulled into realization of the death of the vanities, the movie lets the audience feel flattered by a Hollywood finish. The book's ending is too hard hitting, the movie's merely filmy. The eternal challenge of conforming reality to art while conforming art to reality again gets the better of both the artists - the director as well as the writer. May 4, 2007

either barely watchable or almost unwatchable

adapted from a book that the main character and its author both got an overblown self-important, self-centered pump-up ego as large as a 4-wheel bigfoot pickup truck; those 4 biggest off-road rugged tires only made the truck itself on top look like a matchbox model from toys-r-us.
both of the book and the film were among the worst i've ever encountered. tom wolfe is like tom clancy, both trying so hard to put their own images into their books, making their main characters to either become rich and famous celebrities or become the president of the united states. dream on, man, if that's your american dream.
April 29, 2007

More reviews at Amazon.com ...