The Bonfire of the Vanities

I loved this film; rented it and watched it twice in 2 days. I was captivated by the titles (a 24-hour timelapse shot of the New York skyline taken from the top of the Chrysler Building!) and then by the first scene: Bruce Willis's drunken peregrination with sycophantic handlers through the bowels of a hotel, leaving chaos in his wake. It may not have improved from that point, but I never lost interest. What did I miss that led so many people to dislike the film?

Profound exploration of the anatomy and course of a greedy, ambitious and self-centered life, in its various forms (through several characters with unique forms of greed and ambition and lust). Various people get their just dues in humorous, often unexpected ways. Really satisfying and clever movie.

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.

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.

This was a good movie. I have read many reviews that people thought it was awful but in my opinion it was good. There was great casting. Bruce Willis was great as the almost always drunken reporter, Tom Hanks as the having an affair type husband that gets mixed up in a hit and run accident. Beth Broderick was good too even though this movie allowed her a small role it was a very crucial role. Melanie Griffith was irritating at times but that was the way of her character, so she was great at that role. This is a movie I would recommend for teenagers and adults only considering that there is cussing and the overall moral of the movie.