The Bonfire of the Vanities

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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The back cover for the DVD calls this movie "hilarious" and "the quintessential story of the go-for-it '80s." In truth, it is neither. The Bonfire of the Vanities is, however, funny in parts, poignant in parts, and entertaining throughout.

The protagonist is Sherman McCoy, a man whose one fatal flaw (an affair we know of from the beginning) leads to the downfall from his envious position as a "Master of the Universe." Tom Hanks gives an excellent performance and shows real emotion in bringing this highly plausible character to life. Unfortunately, his character is the only one with enough depth to be realistic. Even Morgan Freeman's Judge White, representing a refreshing dose of intelligence and honesty in the film, is perhaps too good to be believed. All of the other characters are mere caricatures, appearing too greedy, too pretentious, too self-absorbed, or too flighty to be believed. Bruce Willis might have made himself an exception as well, but I feel he simply lacked enough screen time to flesh out the different faces he had to show.

Nevertheless the story is very well told. If the other characters appear less than convincing, accept them as colorful background for McCoy, who is the real focus anyway. There are numerous laughs, and the other characters represent elements that are definitely present in society - even if not to the extent shown here. Wolfe's story is entertaining enough to make this movie worth seeing. And it might even make you think twice about the names you see next time you open a newspaper.

7 / 10 stars.

Before I talk about the movie itself, I'd like to get ugly for a quick sec..

I am sick and tired of people whining that a movie isn't as good as a book. First of all, we all already know that 99% of the time a book is not equally rendered in film. How can it? The physiological experience of reading is totally different from that of taking in audio-video. Hello? A book often can't fit into a 90 minute movie anyway, and we all complain when a director tries to stretch our minute-rice attention span more than 2 hours, which would allow the space to capture more of the subtle nuances that we love in a book.

If you want to read the book, do us all a favour, don't watch a movie, go read the #@%$ book. Does anyone think that a painting could represent each facet of a poem? They are two separate and distinct mediums. Sheesh.

Now, book aside, this movie is trying to talk about an issue. And it does so quite fine. If you need the book to get the message, that's your business.

Each character was a caricature, a spoof, hyperbolized to help drive home the message that truth is often irrelevant to the socio-political motives behind people's actions. From the "assistant DA" looking for recognition to the "hymie racist" angling for the office of mayor to the "good reverend" looking for sympathy for his people (and a payday) to Fallow trying to save his career to McCoy's lawyer who has to patiently deal with his naive client who doesn't grasp that his life is insignificant to all those who somehow have generated a vested interest in his demise...

I got the message, it didn't take me the 6 hours or two days (or however long it would take me to make time to read the book), and I had some fun.

Bonfire of the vanities. A movie that has the reputation of being awful. I didn't think so. I saw it a long time ago but liked it. I have heard so much about how bad this movie was and never understood why. It isn't the best movie definitely not but there are so many BAD movies-this movie had a message (a pretty sad one) and the story was Involving. My attention was captured. I wanted to see what would happen next.

This movie is so true to life. There ARE people out there whose actions would be worse then some in this movie. People whose lives are motivated by greed. (The worst bad movie out there that I've seen that tells the story of truly horrendous people motivated by greed and power is "in the company of men". Much more unpleasant then this movie.) This movie, I GUESS is controversial, not considered as good as the book and maybe it was ahead of its time. I think it's worth seeing though and would give it a 7.

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.