The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) User Reviews

A true misfire of a comedy

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 16 November 2016]

THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES has gone down in history as one of the worst movie flops ever made and I'm inclined to agree. I have no interest in the material and I only watched this because De Palma directed; the director does his best to keep things interesting but unfortunately he can only do so much with the material and other than the opening tracking shot there's nothing very impressive here.

The story is slow and long-winded and full of unpleasant characters. Bruce Willis is in it for name value but feels badly miscast in the role of the writer. Tom Hanks looks uncomfortable throughout and his character comes across as false and artificial. The less said about Melanie Griffith and her dreadful performance the better.

The film just sort of drags on and on without ever achieving anything. I understand how it's supposed to be a satire of wealth and fame and the yuppie culture but the humour falls flat and the whole courtroom drama thing is dragged out to the degree that it becomes really boring. Other than the novelty of seeing Morgan Freeman in an against-type role this really is a pointless exercise.

Not As Awful As Some Claim

[Michael_Elliott · 14 April 2016]

The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)

** (out of 4)

Rich Wall Street hot shot Sherman McCoy (Tom Hanks) and his mistress (Melanie Griffith) are out for some fun when they take the wrong turn and end up in the ghetto of the Bronx. While Sherman is about to get robbed the mistress takes off in the car to save him and ends up running over one of the black men. Pretty soon a dirty D.A. and other conspire to turn the story into a race issue and reporter Peter Fallow (Bruce Willis) finds himself with a story.

THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES will go down as one of the biggest bombs ever produced by Hollywood and also one of the most hated film. I say one of the most hated films and that group are fans of the novel because most of them will turn green and vomit pea soup whenever this film is mentioned. I've never read the novel that this is based on so I obviously can't compare the two but what the film did offer wasn't very much and it's easy to see why it just didn't take off.

I've read about the troubled production of the movie and I think the biggest fault is in its casting. While there's some very talented people here, the casting just doesn't work. I had a major problem with Hanks because he was simply too nice and too much of a likable person to capture what I've read the book was trying to do. To make the lead character such a good guy really takes away any of the satire that the film is trying to go for and in the end it really makes for a rather boring story. Willis isn't much better as the reporter with his boring narration and he's just not fun. I'd say the same with Griffith who at least shows off her body but little else.

A lot of the blame has to go to director Brian DePalma who was on an incredible streak of hits before running into this thing. Many people seem to think that this was the movie that killed his career. I'm not sure what he saw in the story or why he decided to change as much of it as he did but the final product is just lame, boring and just not very interesting. All three lead characters are complete bores and the supporting characters aren't much interesting. When you're watching a movie with a bunch of people you don't care about it's just hard to invest too much into the film.

The film is pretty to look at and I'd argue that it's somewhat well-made but this means very little when there's just not enough entertainment. I honestly don't think the film meets its reputation as one of the worst ever made but I think I would have enjoyed it more had it really been that bad. As it is, THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES is just bland, which is the worst thing any movie could be.

Tom Hanks wrong and other things too

[SnoopyStyle · 4/10 · 15 March 2016]

Sherman McCoy (Tom Hanks) is a big time Wall Street trader and considers himself one of the Masters of the Universe. His wife Judy (Kim Cattrall) is angry with his cheating. He goes to pick up his mistress Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith) from JFK airport. They get lost in the Bronx. They get frightened by two black men and Maria drives over one of them. Drunken reporter Peter Fallow (Bruce Willis) writes up the hit-and-run. D.A. Abe Weiss (F. Murray Abraham) is facing re-election and needs a white man to convict. Judge Leonard White (Morgan Freeman) sees through it all. Jed Kramer (Saul Rubinek) is the assistant D.A. Reverend Bacon (John Hancock) is agitating.

Tom Hanks is wrong. He's a boy scout. He's the every man. He's no Wall Street man. He's not Charlie Sheen and he's definitely not Michael Douglas. The movie works too hard to make him the good guy and it doesn't feel right. Brian De Palma does a lot of interesting camera moves. The start is an impressive tracking shot. There are the umbrellas. The sets and locations look terrific but it also feels fake. This should be grittier, darker and harder. Every character is a caricature. Lastly, the two black guys need to be more definitive. They should be bringing out their guns to rob them or be two younger kids looking to help them. It would make whatever the movie is trying to do that much sharper. With the central character being so wrong, it's hard to make this movie right.

Interesting in concept but the delivery is simplistic and lacking wit or subtlety

[bob the moo · 19 April 2005]

Sherman McCoy 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) 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 "non-whites", Maria 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, white world starts to crumble.

Years after the critical kicking that the film got about 15 years ago, I decided to watch Bonfire for only the second time (the first being over a decade ago) to see it without the pressure of the dogs that were unleashed on it at the time of release. Watching it now, having never read the source material, what is evident is that it has some elements to it that make it worth seeing but ultimately make it a rather heavy handed affair that doesn't work that well in several regards. At its heart the film is a solid dig at the socialites of New York and the moral vacuum that exists within it and the business world that supports it; in fact it has digs at plenty of other of institutions and groups but this is at the centre of it. In essence you can see how this was a good idea but it all falls to bits in the delivery; the film doesn't trust us to understand this if it was done subtly and so it is all done in a heavy-handed manner that makes the same points over and over until you feel a bit browbeaten.

The narrative is interesting in the concept but it is developed to extremes to the point where it seems overdone. This is best seen in the characters, who lose their sense of reality and become almost caricatures instead; in a way this helps because they can be recognised even by those not part of New York culture but it damages it in the long run because it is impossible to identify with or care for the characters. Perhaps that is why the actors appear to struggle as much as they do and deliver very poor performances. Willis hadn't shown himself then to be the actor I know believe him to be capable of being and thus he just delivers a smirking, one-note character that is very little use. Hanks is not a great deal better; he plays his character too wide-eyed and innocent to convince as part of the community that the film is attacking; when his collapse comes, it comes too quickly and in too much comedy style. Griffith has one joke to make and she makes it over and over again with nothing else behind it. Cattrall, Rubinek, Dunn, Murray and Freeman all do reasonably well in support but none have the characters to really make anything happen beyond the basics.

Overall this is not the horror show that some critics made it out to be but it is a fairly poor film that turns an interesting concept and satirical goldmine into a messy, noisy affair that lacks a real cohesion and subtlety. The actors are adrift in the middle of all this and suffer as a result. The points it makes are OK but you have to wonder what sort of idiots De Palma takes us for because he keeps making them over and over again, but this was just one of many problems that the film had that it couldn't resolve.

When I was really young, I thought that it had "vampire" in the title!

[lee_eisenberg · 8/10 · 16 March 2006]

When "The Bonfire of the Vanities" came out at the end of 1990, it was slammed by the critics, and "went up in smoke" at the box office. Maybe some people thought that it was trying to capitalize on what "Wall Street" showed a few years earlier.

When I saw it several years later, I thought that it was quite well done. Like "Wall Street", it does show the decadence, cynicism, and greed inherent in the lives of rich New Yorkers. But this one has sort of a comedic tone. It portrays stock broker Sherman McCoy's (Tom Hanks) self-serving lifestyle getting thrown into flux when his mistress Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith) accidentally runs over a young African-American. This incident ignites people's emotions all over the board, which may be the title's implication: Sherman's vain existence is crashing down, and he's getting exposed to groups whom he had never even considered earlier.

Personally, I couldn't understand why the critics and public didn't like this movie (considering that we made the kitschy "Home Alone" a hit around the same time, we ought to be ashamed of ourselves for ignoring "TBOTV"). It looks at the various problems with our society: greed, racism, and yellow journalism. Bruce Willis, whom I usually find obnoxious, does a really good job here as reporter Peter Fallow, out to make a few bucks by blowing the story up as much as possible. There's also a character based on Rev. Al Sharpton.

All in all, this is a move worth seeing. It's definitive proof that Brian DePalma was a lot better before he got all Hollywood with "Mission: Impossible", "Snake Eyes", etc. Also starring Morgan Freeman, a very young Kirsten Dunst, and several people (among them F. Murray Abraham and Andre Gregory) in small roles. Watch for Malachy McCourt (the brother of "Angela's Ashes" author Frank McCourt) as the doorman.

And yes, I once thought that the title was something like "Vampire of the Bonnies". You know, just one of those mispronunciations when you're really young.

An Oddball Comedy of Sorts

[gavin6942 · 6/10 · 11 November 2013]

After his mistress (Melanie Griffith) runs over a young teen, a Wall Street hotshot (Tom Hanks) sees his life unravel in the spotlight, and attracting the interest of a down and out reporter (Bruce Willis).

This film has a relatively low rating, especially when you consider the A-list cast and top-notch director. I can only suspect that is because there is no way to categorize this film. While it is clearly a comedy, it is both dark and satirical and yet just plain silly at times.

Is it a commentary on the justice system? Or perhaps on Wall Street? Maybe even journalism? Maybe if I read the Tom Wolfe novel I would get a better sense of the message. Otherwise, I just have to think there is no message at all and this film is a big-fisted boxer who refuses to punch.

Overall, the film was nominated for five Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Actress (Melanie Griffith), Worst Supporting Actress (Kim Cattrall) and Worst Screenplay, but did not win any of those categories. A shame?

Notes From the Underground

[rmax304823 · 4/10 · 13 February 2005]

The point of Wolfe's original novel -- indeed the point of the whole story -- is that things take place because of a carefully calculated sense of expediency. The goal is survival within a particular kind of life style. The novel is full of malice. The only relationship that rings emotionally true is that between Sherman and his daughter, Campbell, and that's only touched upon. That aside, everyone is out for what he can get in the way of publicity, power, money or self aggrandizement.

Wolfe was criticized for hitting every character and every social segment of New York City over the head. His response was a denial. After all, he lived in New York himself and belonged to a neighborhood improvement committee and other admirable organizations, exactly the qualifications one would want on his resume in order to deny that he disliked New Yorkers. (Wolfe has a PhD in American Studies from Yale and is no dummy.) Those supposed weaknesses are what made the novel memorable. Nobody was any good. And Sherman McCoy wound up broke, a professional protester for social justice. The movie throws all of that away and imposes a moral frame on the story that simply doesn't fit. Wolfe did his homework. The novel was rooted in reality. Every event was not only possible but thoroughly believable. Wolfe might have made a great cultural anthropologist -- he knows how to get inside a system and record its details.

Yes, any of us might have found ourselves, as Sherman and his mistress do, stuck in the South Bronx, threatened by a couple of black kids, and making a getaway after bumping into one of them. That scene is transferred neatly from print to celluloid.

But after that scene the movie seems not to trust its audience and at times become frantic in its attempt to spell out its message, however nebulous the message is.

Sherman might accidentally hit some kid and be arrested for it as he is in the novel, but he would not immediately upon his release from jail go back to his phenomenally expensive condo, take out a shotgun, and start shooting into the ceiling with it, as he does in the movee. In what's supposed to be a funny scene, ceiling plaster falls all over the party guests and they scurry away, shrieking. It simply would not have happened. The movie has left the novel's unspeakably detailed reality in the dust. Wolfe's sensibility, the work he put into capturing the real, has been lost. What we get instead is a noisy, fantastic, and silly scene that doesn't do anything except wake the audience up. Similar empty scenes follow, screaming out for Wolfe's verisimilitude.

The movie also fails because it thrusts a lot of sin and redemption into an entertaining story of moral nihilism. Here we see "Don Juan in Hell" at the opera. We get lectures on redemption from a poet with AIDs. We see a lot of guilt in Sherman. A black judge who preaches from the bench and gives one of those final speeches about how we all have to start behaving nicely again. A reporter who feels sorry for Sherman after turning him into a sacrificial lamb. And a happy ending in which Sherman gets off by breaking the law with an idiotic grin. The scene sits on the movie like a jester's cap on a circus elephant's head.

The movie not only makes points that are already trite and unoriginal, it overstates them, as if the audience were incapable of absorbing any subtleties.

It's not the acting or the direction that's poor. The film's not bad in those respects. And the photography is pretty good too, including two rather spectacular shots -- the gargoyles of the Chrysler building and the landing of the Concorde. It's the script that is thoroughly botched.

The first half of the movie, roughly, is okay in conception and execution. It keeps some of the little details from the novel. Sherman and Judy's dog is named Marshall. Who the hell would name a dog Marshall? It loses its focus almost completely in the second half and on the whole is barely worth watching.

Wolfe's cynical redneck right-wingism may be offensive to a lot of people, but he's got the cojones to lay his percepts out. Alas the writers and producers did not have the courage to pick them up and thus blew the chance to make a fascinating study of New Yorkers.

A boobish picture...insufferable and vapid, and miscast in the bargain

[moonspinner55 · 2/10 · 2 July 2010]

A married bonds trader on Wall Street, out for the evening with his equally-married mistress, takes a wrong turn and ends up in a scary section of the Bronx; after he's accosted by two black youths, the wealthy white couple take it on the lam, ending with one of the boys being struck by their Mercedes. One-part satire of yuppie mobility, the other half a cartoonish cause célèbre, and neither half particularly interesting. Tom Wolfe's bestseller became a movie nobody went to see in 1990, partially due to the miscasting of Tom Hanks as the sales giant whose life is ruined after the story is broken by a newspaper journalist (Bruce Willis, also miscast) who writes his sordid tale before getting all the facts. Brian De Palma is obviously a good director who knows how to pump pizazz and style into a scenario, but this doesn't seem like material he would be in love with. The long opening shot (done in one seamless take, going up in an elevator and then down different hallways) is exceptional, but the behavior of Willis in the scene (acting like a drunken jackass) is immediately off-putting. Willis also narrates the movie in flashback; once we get to the finale (which started the picture), we are no closer to knowing how this writer got to be so smugly, decadently wealthy than we knew from the beginning. A painful experience. * from ****

a case of the "What Were They Thinking!" mode Hollywood film-making

[Quinoa1984 · 5/10 · 22 February 2010]

There's two kinds of people seeing the film of The Bonfire of the Vanities. Those who have read the book by Tom Wolfe, and those who have not. Some may know a little more about what the book is before seeing the movie, but in general at least the uninitiated have some idea. I read the book, and heard the backlash on the movie, and even began to read the book by Julie Salomon about the making of the movie, The Devil's Candy. It is a tremendous book, a razor-sharp satire and dark human tragic-comedy where everyone is unlikeable, and yet by a certain point the person who should be most unlikeable and unsympathetic, Sherman McCoy, the Wall-Street Bond Trader who is brought in on charges of reckless endangerment for his car running over a black honor student, ironically becomes a little more sympathetic (or just understandable and human, is perhaps the point).

Seeing the movie with someone who hasn't read the book, however, is a valuable experience, and the friend I watched it with confirmed my own thoughts: the movie isn't so terrible as to completely throw on the heap of directorial toxic-sludge (it doesn't come close to, say, Godard's King Lear as a cinematic cluster-f***), and some of the performances are actually good or at least decent- SOME being a key word here- but it's also confused and baffling, and not very funny most of the time. De Palma's inspiration in putting the characterizations forward was Dr. Strangelove, where characters are in a heightened reality and no one is really just a character but is larger-than-life. This was fine for Kubrick when taking his source material, which was quite serious as a Nuclear-war book, and making into a gaudy spectacle.

De Palma should have asked himself something simple, which is why make something already so good into something else? Is The Bonfire of the Vanities, as a movie, a satire? Yes and no. Yes in that it takes on subjects like Wall Street bond traders and high society big shots and ne'er-do-wells and tabloid journalists and district attorneys (and assistant district attorneys) and an opportunistic reverend and gives them a skewering. It screams out "YES, WE'RE SATIRE" without going to an extreme like Spike Lee's Bamboozled did, though that's an apt comparison. But no in that De Palma, whether it was mostly himself second guessing in pre-production or by pressure of the studios, had to make things more 'likable' and 'sympathetic'. Mainstream was probably a key word between De Palma and the studio execs and people worried about such a controversial book as Wolfe's (one would like to think just the studio's fault but who knows the percentage of blame).

And yet I would be lying if I said I thought it was a failure and totally horrible movie like so many other critics and viewers did. It's not, really. It's like an interesting fall on the face, and seeing the parts that are interesting get one through the running time. It's at least never boring; Tom Hanks, though just a few years shy young to play McCoy as written in the book, does have his moments where he gets to shine as an actor, and is even really funny a few times (my favorite scenes in the movie have him in it, one where he's interrogated by the detectives and bumbles it completely with the word 'routine', and the other when he unloads his twelve-gage rifle with total abandon around his bemused dinner guests, hilarious, perhaps, just seeing Hanks doing this). Other actors like Kim Cattral, (very sexy) Melanie Griffith, and Saul Rubinek do decently in supporting roles. F. Murray Abraham, for all of his over the top theatrics, actually gets perhaps most what De Palma's intention is with the material, and rolls with it (not to mention amazing bit parts for Andre Gregory and Richard Belzer).

But the two big gaffs here, one of which a really huge one that brings the film down from interesting misfire to practical disaster, is the casting of the Judge and Peter Fallow. It's one thing to get a character totally wrong on paper, which does happen here, and it's another to cast it wrong. Morgan Freeman is a great actor, and has no real place here in the film. Even putting aside the intent of Wolfe with the Judge- that he was, by the way, and old Jewish man who, along with the D.A. Abe Weiss, meant to reflect the 'old guard' of judges from the Bronx- Freeman is given little to do except yell out like he's reprising the principal in Lean on Me, and give a totally ham-fisted, awfully written "movie" speech at the end. He does what he can with the material, but ultimately, for however few minutes he's on screen, it's a bust.

And Peter Fallow. Holy hell this is a misfire on all counts. Watching Bruce Willis on screen one realizes the dark side of Hollywood, where casting a star for safety sake can completely backfire when it's not right. The writing by Michael Christofer doesn't do any favors, as the narration stinks mostly anyway, but Willis is a lump on screen, barely doing anything to make him interesting... and yet, unlike in the book, most egregiously, we're meant to side with him in some way, or find him kind of, you know, sympathetic in some way. The original choice for Peter Fallow- a sly, lackadaisical drunk- was John Cleese. The gulf between the two choices is wide enough to put a blue whale in. Even if everything else worked great in Bonfire of the Vanities, Willis, his acting and the character as a whole, would make the film flawed on its own. In other words: What Were They Thinking? C-

Lolita

[tedg · 17 May 2002]

Spoilers herein.

dePalma, Wolfe, Fallows: three men approach their art. In each case, their sponsoring environment presses in to perturb and pollute. In each case, they center the narrative on cartoonish drama, but the real art has nothing to do with the tokens. Rather, the art is in designing the distance between the reporter and the action.

That is the whole of Wolfe's art, his placement of self to the world. His books are famously ghostwritten so far as the story -- to keep the tone and much of his language but have the story make sense. But the story doesn't matter, it is only an excuse for an abstract irony, a reverse voyeurism that readers like.

This book is self-referential in that the author faces the same dilemma. The film was designed to also self-referentially encapsulate these two layers, forming a third. dePalma famously studies these problems and how they can be solved by the stance of the collective eye through his camera.

So yes, the story in this film was destroyed by incessant meddling by the studio. Yes, the performances are way off as a result of rampant egos. Yes, the resulting story and characters are wholly unengaging. That's a plus, folks. Surely dePalma did not intend such a pool of muck, but it works for him just as is does for Wolfe and Fallows.

dePalma's eye is cast here in the Nabokov mode: another half step away from the action, commenting on itself but not quite sure where reality and fiction divide. The eye is ambiguous. We supposed to be subliminally aware of it: note how few angles are ones a human would have, how few motions are ones an observer would make.

The tone is indicated in the first shot where timelapse shows jets coming into Newark, turning into comets turning into the title. This is followed by a nearly five minute continuous traveling shot introducing Fallows as narrator, bringing him to us, the swarming crowd. It is only matched by that first scene in `The Player' (of the next year) which attempts the very same commented distance.

Fallows as Hubert. A brilliant idea, latter annotated by making the annoying Melanie Dorothy's mother. This completed a trilogy where dePalma used here previously as the deceptive, meaningless focus in "Body Double" where the real meaning was elsewhere.

Silly

[bevo-13678 · 10/10 · 30 March 2020]

I like the bonfire but it seemed to have a high opinion of itself

Underrated

[safenoe · 6/10 · 11 September 2017]

Before I watched The Bonfire of the Vanities, I read Tom Wolfe's novel and Julie Salamon's The Devil's Candy which was about the making of the movie Maybe this colored my perception of the movie, but I think the movie stands in its own right, and didn't deserve the trashing by critics. Still, it could have been better and even a contender. Perhaps a reboot can redeem this movie?

The casting is all wrong, the nuances all missed

[AlsExGal · 4/10 · 19 November 2016]

It's been a long time since I read the book or saw the movie, but the casting in this film was all wrong. I saw the trailer on TV, saw the disaster the film might be, but I went to see it anyways and I was very disappointed. Tom Hanks, even before Philadelphia or Forrest Gump or Sleepless in Seattle, played the likable every-man. Hanks' character, Sherman McCoy, is a wall street tycoon, aged 38, with a wife two years older, a daughter he adores, and a young mistress that he insists he deserves all because he is a "master of the universe". In the book, Judy McCoy, Sherman's wife, is described as handsome but matronly at aged 40. Sherman remembers his mother telling him a wife two years older would not make a difference when he was 24 and she was 26, but 20 years later it would, and actually it took only ten years.

But then one night when he is with his mistress, Sherman takes a wrong turn off the freeway into the South Bronx and ends up hitting a black youth with his car because he perceives his life is in danger, and decides to not report the accident to police, to "hit and run". However, he is tracked down and arrested and soon realizes he is not the master of anything compared to the grifters, community leaders, ambulance chasers, and prosecutors who finally have a completely unlikable rich white perp and a poor black victim.

The novel was wonderful and nuanced. The movie is obvious and almost farcical. Hanks is too likable to play any of the characters in this film, I had Bruce Willis pictured as Sherman McCoy more than the drunken yellow journalist, and Kim Cattrell, who plays Sherman's wife, doesn't look like the matronly 40 year old and barely tolerated wife of anybody in 1990. Only Morgan Freeman as the judge rings remotely true. I'd pass on this one if I were you, but for sure read the book. After the 2008 crash and the banksters walking away without a scratch, Sherman McCoy seems more real than ever.

Not a TOTAL bomb...

[Wizard-8 · 14 May 2014]

I have not read the Tom Wolfe novel that this movie is based on, so I can't say for certain how closely this cinematic adaptation follows its source. However, I am sure that the novel would be a more satisfying experience than this movie. I'm pretty sure that the novel got into the heads of the characters more, and spent more time attacking its various targets. Though there are plenty of targets in the movie, the attack on them seems kind of soft and not as savage as it should be. A bigger problem is how the characters are presented. The actors play their parts more often than not in a broad and "funny" manner, which is not that funny at all. The correct way to approach this material would be to play it straight. I don't blame the actors for this - I blame director Brian De Palma for directing his talented cast to act this wrongheaded way.

Though the movie is misguided, I didn't find it totally bad as some have made it out to be. I have to admit that as misguided as the movie is, and having a running time of over two hours, I was never BORED while watching it. The core story does unfold in a way that makes you interested in how it will be resolved. So while the movie is definitely a miss, it's not completely awful.

I do not know if this film is a drama of cemedy

[mm-39 · 5/10 · 22 July 2002]

Spoiler This film is diluted the viewer does not know what to make of it. Maybe, I miss the humor because I am not a New Yorker, but I understand it. It's a storie about how phoney people are, how platic there lives are, how the press, social activest grounps, and society lie to get ahead. In the end, a good man Hanks is ask to tell the truth to hurt himself inorder for the liers to hurt him. Of course he doesn't. A good views of are society has evolved too! Depalma kills this one with his directing. 5/10

Read the book instead. No, the other one.

[Mr-Fusion · 3/10 · 6 October 2015]

I've never read the source novel for "Bonfire of the Vanities", so I can't view the film version in an adaptation context. But I can look at this as a movie that features a laundry list of capable actors and a skilled director and ask, "What the hell is this?" All this talent wasted on something so meandering, on-the-nose and comically unfunny? Sherman McCoy is supposed to be an unlikable character, and they go out and cast Tom Hanks? And Melanie Griffith over Uma Thurman? Honestly, this thing was doomed from the first step.

On the plus side, Morgan Freeman steals the entire thing (although his percentage of screen time is woefully lacking). And F. Murray Abraham does have the one funny line. That's right, one. The satirical wit herein isn't rapier, but more plastic spoon, and it just makes the whole movie a grind. Some of the worst pacing I've seen in a while.

If you do decide to suffer through this wretchedness, immediately go out and read Julie Salamon's "The Devil's Candy", which is one of the most scintillating behind-the-scenes books out there.

Unbelievably more rewarding than the movie.

3/10

I enjoyed it even though I've read the book!

[JamesHitchcock · 7/10 · 23 March 2009]

"The Bonfire of the Vanities" is one of those films which is widely supposed to be enjoyed by those who have not read the book on which it is based, and hated by those who have; other examples include "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" and the recent "Brideshead Revisited", although in many people's eyes that film also suffered by comparison with the well-known television adaptation. So let me make my position clear from the start. I have read Tom Wolfe's novel, and loved it, and yet I quite enjoyed the film as well.

The story concerns Sherman McCoy, a rich Wall Street financier, whose life collapses after his car is involved in an accident in which a black teenager is seriously injured. Sherman, in fact, was not driving at the time of the accident (the car was being driven by his mistress Maria Ruskin), but he is unable to reveal this fact as he does not want his wife Judy to discover his extra-marital affair. The case is taken up by Peter Fallow, a cynical alcoholic journalist, and The Reverend Bacon, a populist black preacher, and becomes a cause celebre. Sherman is arrested and put on trial, while being pilloried in the media as a greedy, heartless white banker who recklessly injured a black youth and then callously abandoned him. The film-makers have softened Wolfe's plot by giving it a happy, or at least a happier, ending and by making the characters of Sherman and Fallow more sympathetic. Unlike in the book, Fallow undergoes a change of heart and becomes Sherman's ally rather than one of his tormentors.

There seem to be two, related, reasons why the film's detractors dislike it. The first lies in the changes made to the plot. The second lies in what they see as inappropriate casting, and I have some sympathy with them as far as Tom Hanks, who plays Sherman, is concerned. In the original novel, Sherman was in many ways an unattractive character, the sort of man who regarded himself as a "Master of the Universe", whereas in the film his arrogance and financial greed are very much played down. Admittedly, he is cheating on his wife, but as Kim Cattrall plays Judy as cold, sarcastic, snobbish and self-centred, even his infidelity does not prejudice us against him. In the eighties Hanks was best known for playing the hero of light comedies such as "Splash" and "Big", and "The Bonfire of the Vanities" was clearly an attempt to extend his range into more heavyweight material. Nevertheless, Sherman still comes across as a typical Hanks character, the genial, likable Mr Nice Guy. This may have been quite deliberate on the part of the film-makers, but I thought that it wasted one of Wolfe's major themes, his criticism of the materialistic "greed is good" culture of the eighties. Despite his reputation as a socially conservative writer, Wolfe is no great admirer of unrestricted capitalism, which is also satirised in his second novel, "A Man in Full".

I felt that those who complained about miscasting concentrated too much on Hanks, as most of the other roles are well played. Certainly, there are some changes. In the book the brunette Maria is rather more sophisticated than the blonde, gold-digging bimbo played by Melanie Griffith, and Peter Fallow is a louche Englishman rather than the hard-bitten New Yorker played by Bruce Willis. Yet I felt that, in the context of the film, these particular characterisations worked well, even if the characters were not quite the same as those created by Wolfe. I also liked Cattrall as Judy and F. Murray Abraham as district attorney Abe Weiss, the cynical careerist who makes a great play of being a concerned liberal. He is the sort of prosecutor who is more interested in his political future- he has ambitions to become mayor of New York- than he is in justice; he is obsessed with Sherman's case because he believes that obtaining a conviction against a wealthy white defendant will ingratiate himself with black voters. ("A Time to Kill", made a few years later, features a very similar DA, played in that case by Kevin Spacey- exxcept that Spacey's character wanted to convict a black defendant to ingratiate himself with white voters).

Wolfe's book was never going to be an easy one to transfer to the screen. It is a long, complex book, written in the style of the nineteenth century novelists whom the author admires. Dickens was one major influence, and the title (apart from its reference to Savonarola's burning of luxuries in the Florence of the 1490s) is an allusion to Thackeray's "Vanity Fair". Its complexity meant that its full nuances could never be transferred to the screen in full, and any cinema adaptation would have to be very much simplified. The solution adopted by director Brian De Palma and scriptwriter Michael Cristofer was to make the film as a satirical black comedy, and I think that, on the whole, this approach works quite well. The film might tone down Wolfe's satire on capitalist excesses, but it keeps some of his other targets. The film takes potshots at muckraking journalism- Fallow's articles are inspired less by sympathy with the injured boy than by the need to find a good story to ingratiate himself with his editor- at clergymen who misuse religion for political ends, and at the legal system, here represented by Weiss. The film, for me, will never quite capture the excitement I felt reading Wolfe's great novel, but it makes a respectable attempt at capturing something of its spirit. 7/10

Mediocre, not awful.

[MovieAddict2016 · 5/10 · 29 April 2005]

If you are a fan of Brian De Palma, you already know about "The Bonfire of the Vanities." This is constantly referred to as his hugest flop and largest disappointment, probably for good reason. Its cast -- Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith, Bruce Willis and Kim Cattrall -- are hardly unpopular and the material is fairly interesting.

What, then, went wrong? In my opinion "The Bonfire of the Vanities" is just poorly executed. I saw this film years ago and lost interest in it almost immediately. The dark humor grows tiresome and isn't nearly as clever as it thinks it is. Tom Hanks isn't really believable in his role and the whole cast seem to be high on something; Bruce Willis in particular is giving a really odd performance, and I didn't have a clue what he was trying to accomplish with his character. He's supposed to be a drunk, but he came across as something more desperate.

The film follows the events in the life of Hanks after he takes a wrong turn off an interstate highway and ends up in a rough area of the city. His girlfriend accidentally hits a black kid in the street, and they try to cover it up, fearing for their lives.

What follows is a satire of something. I'm not sure exactly what because De Palma loses vision of his goal very early on. I didn't know whether to laugh, or gasp in horror. It's a very strange movie.

That said, the critics are a bit TOO harsh on it. I would hardly call this the total waste of time some people made it out to be on release. It is widely considered one of the most infamous atrocities of cinema and I don't think it's quite deserving of that sort of reaction.

It did push De Palma's career back a few years, though, didn't it?

Crash Dive

[tieman64 · 27 February 2010]

Brian De Palma's "Bonfire of the Vanities" is a terrible film. Far more interesting is "The Devil's Candy", a book written by Julie Salamon, a Wall Street Journal film critic who was given unlimited access to the film's production. The book highlights De Palma's battles with producers, studio executives and actors, and the mood of overall futility that overcame the director toward the end of the production.

For example, De Palma didn't want either actor Tom Hanks or Bruce Willis to star in the picture, but being big money magnets at the time, they were forced upon him. Willis and De Palma would also get into heated arguments, the star frequently turning up both drunk and late. The changing of the novel's subplot from "Jewish" to "African American" also irked the director, as well as studio imposed cuts (which removed almost half an hour of footage) and star Melanie Griffith ditching the shoot for breast enlargement.

But hilariously, De Palma's big beef seems to be that he was not allowed to shoot in locations or buildings he found appealing. Generally speaking, De Palma is all about photographing space and careening through fine architecture. On "Bonfire of The Vanities", however, he got saddled with locations which he says he simply had no desire to shoot. Indeed, some of the only memorable shots in the film were done by second unit photographers, De Palma abdicating duty to his crew.

Beyond all this, "Bonfire" has vague allusions to a number of other De Palma films. It's tale, for example, of wealthy careerists who become pawns to corporate kings echo De Palma's "Get To Know Your Rabbit", and of course De Palma's own career trajectory. There is some self-reference in the fact that the film's cast spins out of control, dancing to the tune of the money men, but this only makes for appropriate irony, not good cinema.

"Bonfire" contains a number of flamboyant sequences, most notably the long take which opens the film, but they're all ugly and garish, shot in sterile back-room corridors or packed with grating dialogue. In interviews De Palma would insist that he "always has final cut", a statement which is ironic considering the level of studio meddling his films garner. Most recently he claimed to have had final cut on "Black Dahlia" and "Redacted", yet one film had its coda censored and the other lost almost an hour of footage. Regardless, no amount of restored or removed footage can help "Bonfire of the Vanities". It's a poor film, of interest only to De Palma completists.

3/10 - Worth no viewings.

Highly Disappointing

[tfrizzell · 9 January 2001]

Tom Wolfe's vastly popular novel is a pure mess on the big screen. The big name cast, which includes Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith, Bruce Willis, and Morgan Freeman, does nothing special to keep the attention of the audience. The film deals with New York socialites bumping heads with the poorest people within the city. Brian De Palma's direction is dull, overblown, and prodding. In the end, "Bonfire of the Vanities" is easily one of the biggest, if not the biggest disappointment of the 1990s. 2 stars out of 5.

Dunning, Sponget And Leach

[atlasmb · 5/10 · 17 June 2021]

Upon first viewing this film, I was confused. I knew I didn't like it, but what, exactly, was wrong with it? So I watched it again, this time with the intent to consider it a comedy.

Generally considered a flop, "Bonfire" is meant to be a satire and it targets almost every corner of the American landscape. But it is not very funny.

It starts with a lengthy one-take shot that introduces the viewer to Peter Fallow (Bruce Willis), an author who is an indulgent, lecherous lush. But wait-it turns out he is not the primary subject of the film; he is only the narrator. And the story really starts in flashback about a Wall Street trader named Sherman McCoy (Tom Hanks), who judges his worth according to the size of his paycheck.

McCoy's life falls apart at the direction of various nefarious politicians, lawyers, and religious charlatans who are recognizable in American culture. McCoy is a naïve victim who struggles to find his way through the Dodgsonian imbroglio that is now his life.

The incidental music by Dave Gruisin suggests it is a comedy. In fact, some of it is very reminiscent of his score for "Heaven Can Wait".

All characters are broad caricatures, defusing any misconception that the film is serious. The source novel was by Tom Wolfe, but it could have been Al Capp. There is one exception: Morgan Freeman plays a judge who represents American justice with his feet firmly planted in the legal ideology of the centuries. Did director De Palma mean him to be as contemptuous as the other characters? If so, he failed.

No one could make this film today. Its barbs skewer factions of American society that view all critics as demons. For that reason alone, this film is worth viewing, despite its unevenness and the way it trivializes life. And some of the acting is strong. Just don't expect "To Kill a Mockingbird", though there is some Atticus Finch in the judge's final speech.

Undeserving of its tragic fate

[Rodrigo_Amaro · 10/10 · 14 July 2017]

If people knew how hard it is to make a film in the Hollywood system they probably wouldn't pick so much on "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and its disappointing outcome over the years. Plagued during its production, vilified by critics and failed with audiences, "Bonfire" simply couldn't find its way to possible success or even resurrection as a cult film. A pity. And don't think Hollywood has ever learned from its failure in adapting Tom Wolfe's debut novel - Amazon has announced a miniseries version, but maybe this time they'll get it in the proper form introducing to new audiences an outstanding novel. However, I'm not bitter about the movie. On the contrary, I'm possibly its most avid and loving supporter from the first time I saw it. And I've been through everything: De Palma's film; Wolfe's novel and Julie Salamon's amazing book about the making of the film, the excellent "The Devil's Candy" - the latter one makes me feel truly sorry about all the obstacles faced by the production and how the road to make a hit depends on people who know squat about movies (but somehow they're the ones with the money and power - which kinda reflects the movie's story itself about people who make nothing but gets loads of money for something).

Aside from the obvious facts like adapting a masterful novel of epic proportions and turning into a 2-hour movie (impossible feat considering the many plot points, characters and enormous details), they didn't stand a chance with anything. This was 1990 and here's a work about yuppie generation back when they were a dying breed, so it's quite obvious that audiences wouldn't get much of the sarcasm of the period, specially the way Wolfe described those hateful folks in the early 1980's when yuppie was the trend. Flawed casting choices from a producer who exited the film to get a higher position in another studio was also a factor that damaged the film along in picking a successful playwright who sort of messed it up with the script; and the vanities, oh the vanities from stars, crew and even the director who kept changing everything about the script at the last minute. It's not easy to make a film in Hollywood.

Brian De Palma's film is about the survival of the fittest in a New York jungle where one small wrong step can change a whole game and turn everything into either a calamity or an accidental triumph. Disgraced journalist Peter Fallow (Bruce Willis) gets his golden ticket while covering the story of Sherman McCoy (Tom Hanks), a great Wall Street trader involved in a hit-and-run accident that sent a black kid to the hospital. A wrong turn to the Bronx, along with his mistress (Melanie Griffith) and then a disaster, specially since it's mayoral election year and a greedy district attorney (F. Murray Abraham) wants to get his photo opportunity and hunt down a possible "great white defendant" to justify to possible voters that NY isn't just sending blacks and Latinos to jail. Gargoyles-like characters enter the scene from lawyers, prosecutors to tycoons and figures of the high society and also some less fortunate ones who'll turn McCoy's life into a descent to hell and elevate an opportunist to a massive stardom.

The film detractors who know the book aren't wrong when they say the film lacks in bite, Wolfe's eye for detail and descriptions couldn't be exactly translated specially his sarcastic tone about characters based on real figures and the cynicism about them. Some of the changes made for the film version are rather strange, somewhat acceptable but they hurt the film to a lot of people (the idea of changing the judge ethnicity proved to be the most hurtful one - the studio spent more money in turning the judge a black character than in leaving as he was. In cinematic views, it worked but not that much with that Frank Capra moralistic ending). Another problem is: this isn't a dark comedy, it's an elegant farce which wasn't much appropriate for that kind of material. But it's a funny film and I always get my fair share of laughter - Melanie Griffith is quite flawed but she pronounces Sherman's name exactly like Maria does in the book ("Shamann"); the scenes with Kevin Dunn as Hanks' lawyer are priceless just as Saul Rubinek as the district attorney.

Despite the errors and difficulties, "The Bonfire of the Vanities" will find a little place in the spotlight for the ones who appreciate an interesting story filled with humor, drama and even minor tension. Those who haven't experienced the tasty descriptions of Wolfe will enjoy the film a lot more than the ones who read it. And if you have the opportunity to read Salamon's book about the lavish and shocking making of the film you'll understand a lot more about the movie-making process in Hollywood and how each decision affects a movie, and you'll forgive its mistakes. It doesn't justify much of the money spent in its production, a lot could be reduced but De Palma managed to make a more than decent film, one that stays with you due to some good acting (Willis is hilarious and Hanks tries some dramatic chops for the first time); amazing cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond and Eric Schwab (assistant director who captured the two most beautiful images from the film - also the most difficult ones); the unusual angles filmed from above that give a uneasy sensation we're flying above those ruthless characters. There's charm, some critique and it truly reflected an important cultural era of moral decadence disguised with wealth and power. Those Masters of the Universe didn't know anything about life and yes, progress can really cross a bridge and one day throw rich and poor into the same bonfire. No one got saved. 10/10

"If you are gonna work in a whorehouse, there is only one thing to be: the best whore in the house"

[imseeg · 9/10 · 4 May 2018]

The mistress of Tom Hanks does a hit and run and Hanks becomes the fall guy, when he wasnt even driving the car. Smack in the middle of upcoming elections, politicians and media are feeding on this hit and run story because Tom Hanks' character is a rich WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant). The ideal man to prey on for publicity. Will Tom Hanks get convicted of a crime he didnt commit?

"Bonfire of the Vanities" is an hilariously funny parody. The characters are larger than life. Their flaws are blown up beyond proportions, but for effective comical reasons. Everything from editing to soundtrack to supporting actors (Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis) is just topnotch!

In the end I think this is truly one of De Palma's masterpieces, but because it is an hilarious comedy it will never be regarded as one. That's the eternal curse ALL comedies have to bear. I dont mind, I just can't stop laughing everytime I see it. Must have seen it dozens of times and I still can't get enough of the disastrous but hilarious situations people can get themselves into because of their vanities...

Nice Story. Great Acting. Hilariously funny. Endnote: camerawork by legendary Vilmos Zsigmond, who shot the longest one take scene in history in the opening sequence of this movie. Just as a puzzlegame please try and count how many minutes in a row, the camera films Bruce Willis WITHOUT ANY cut. (Check Imdb Trivia for the answer). I just wanted to point out with this technical example that "Bonfire of the Vanities" is truly an artistic gem, which is higly underrated because of critics who compare this great comedy with a novel they adore. Never compare movies to books. This movie has stood the test of time. It has gained great popularity after its release in Europe. And I truly believe it is Brian de Palma's comedy masterpiece!

Fails to grasp the subtle satire of Tom Wolfe's novel

[tomgillespie2002 · 4/10 · 13 April 2015]

Tom Wolfe's sprawling novel about the aftershocks of a hit-and-run in 1980's New York set out to capture the corruption and self- promotion that seemed to dominate the decade, with every power player in the city, and every hanger-on trying to achieve personal triumph, latching on to the media and cultural frenzy to benefit their own personal agenda. It's a remarkable novel; bleakly hilarious but meticulously detailed. A movie adaptation was always going to be dangerous territory, and Brian De Palma's resulting film, that flopped both critically and commercially, is a confused mess. The complete failure of the film may be somewhat cruel and not wholly deserved, but De Palma goes for all-out comedy, failing to grasp Wolfe's subtle satire completely.

Tom Hanks plays self-styled 'master of the universe' Sherman McCoy, a Wall Street broker who enjoys every material comfort that life can offer, living in his huge apartment with his ditsy wife Judy (Kim Cattrall). During an eventful night with his mistress Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith), they take a wrong turn while heading back to her apartment and end up in South Bronx. Sherman gets out of the car to clear the road when he is approach by two black youths, and a misunderstanding leads to Ruskin accidentally running one of them over. They flee the scene, but once the story of a rich white man almost killing a poor black kid breaks, the likes of Reverend Bacon (John Hancock), a Harlem religious and political leader, Jewish district attorney Abe Weiss (F. Murray Abraham) and hard-drinking journalist Peter Fallow (Bruce Willis) rear their heads to twist the ongoing s**t-storm to their own benefit.

Despite some nice tracking shots and sets that really do capture the tacky glamour of the 80's, the movie's biggest downfall is the casting. The two leads, Hanks and Willis, are woefully miscast. McCoy is a loathsome character, a WASP-ish high-roller in an increasingly capitalist country, but Hanks is one of the most likable actors around. He looks visibly uncomfortable in a thinly- written role, and only takes control of his character in a scene in which he clears his apartment by unloading a shotgun played mainly for laughs, which at this stage of his career was Hanks's shtick. Fallow in the novel is a manipulative con-man, twisting the unravelling story through his newspaper in order to keep his job and make a nice paycheck along the way. But De Palma only seems to have picked up on his heavy drinking, meaning that Willis swings a bottle around and narrates the story, playing the role of spoon-feeder without playing an active role in story or convincing as someone who could get to his position.

But then again, De Palma's movie doesn't exist in the real world. Arguably, the ensemble of characters in Wolfe's novel were caricatures, but they were well-rounded characters, and being inside their heads meant that we could understand their motives, something the movie entirely ignores. So we get the likes of Bacon, Weiss, lawyer Tom Killian (Kevin Dunn) and Assistant District Attorney Kramer (Saul Rubinek), all key players in the novel, reduced to scowling or bumbling onlookers, while McCoy squirms for our amusement and Fallow tells us what we're supposed to be thinking. Occasionally its an all-out pantomime, which would be forgivable it was funny or insightful. Yet when Wolfe calls for pantomime at the climax, the movie delivers a ridiculous speech spoken by Judge White (Morgan Freeman), informing us that decency is what your grandmother taught you.

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Flawed greatness

[pmtelefon · 9/10 · 12 June 2020]

"The Bonfire of the Vanities" never gets old. It's story never feels dated. I'm a big fan of most of Brian De Palma's films. "The Bonfire of the Vanities" is not his best work but it is his most important. For the most part, the cast is terrific. The only weak link is Melanie Griffith. Griffith looks great in her underwear but her performance (mostly her accent) is too over-the-top to really be enjoyed. I actually found her kind of annoying tonight. The of the cast is top-notch. "The Bonfire of the Vanities" still packs a punch. It's a very underrated film. Honorable mention: Donald Moffat.