Breakfast of Champions

Kurt Vonnegut's satirical novel of 1973 resonates as deeply now as it did way back then. The themes of suburban paranoia and soulless consumerism have motivated some of the best films of the last twelve months, so an inspired interpretation of Breakfast of Champions would have been warmly endorsed.

It's clearly been a labour of love for director Alan Rudolph, who has tried for twenty years to make this film. Sadly, twenty years of work appears to have produced one bad draft copy. And Rudolph does not have the slightest grasp on what is funny.

Nick Nolte wanders aimlessly around in a dress but it isn't funny. Albert Finney searches out his chaotic literary masterpieces in pornographic magazines but it isn't funny. Barbara Hershey's character is a product of the chaos, but her appearances lack a motive. She isn't required until the film bursts into chaotic life in its last ten minutes.

This means three great actors are left stranded. It results in the unlikely event of Bruce Willis stealing the acting honours. He is good, but one feels it would have been no great stretch to act insane.

Among the problems here is that the film keeps its feet on the ground. While we're expected to believe the world has gone mad, the actual events are as uninspired as they are unfunny. This doesn't mean it is any easier to understand. In fact, without having read the novel, you'd most likely be lost from the beginning.

The chaos of Vonnegut's vision was its real joy. The way characters conspired to come together was inventive. The film though plays like a cliche. The ending is anarchic, but you get the impression it only serves one purpose: to stop you making rational sense of the rest of the film. And as much as you want to like it, or applaud Rudolph's commitment, the truth is that BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS is a sad, poor film.

I can't believe how a perfect adaptation of one of Vonnegut's most personal works could be ignored with such intensity in this country.

Four actors from Armageddon, Bruce Willis included of course, have seen their way into the most underrated movie of the year. Do you think that was an accident? Of course not. It is from the success of movie blockbusters like Armageddon that movies like Breakfast of Champions are able to be made. And that's exactly what the movie is about.

Vonnegut's classic is among the few greatest satires of American Life I have ever known. I was a profound fan of the book, so I had high expectations for the film. Not only did the film match the qualitative relevance of the novel, I felt the movie surpassed its original intentions, fleshing out the characters and rounding out the story with a humanism often missing from Vonnegut's works.

What is success? Is it something you feel, or is it something perceived by others? What is a good movie? Can a good movie stand on its own, or does it have to be financially and critically acclaimed in our time?

Like many martyrs in history, the success of Breakfast of Champions is that it was made, and that it reaches the audience it wants to, however small.

I watch this film, and know in my heart that there is love behind every scene, and that even though it seems that the work goes on its own artistic tangents, the underlying unity of the film is sound and loyal. Everything in the film is for a reason.

I'll keep it short: absolutely loved the book, for over 20 years. Still holds up and retains the quirky, sarcastic and sardonic elements that made me fall in love with it when I was 15. The movie is yet another failed adaptation of Vonnegut's work. It tries, it swings for the fences, but ultimately, it completely misses. I wanted to like this movie. I tried reeeaaalllll hard, but let's face it, it stinks.

I'm not a literature snob, I think many outstanding films have been made from great books (To Kill a Mockingbird, for one), many great films have been made from sub-par books (Being There, in my opinion is one), and pretty good films CAN be made from Vonnegut (SH5 was a pretty good adaptation and Mother Night was very good, I

thought). This one was not a good film, or even a decent film. It stunk big head cheese left on a hot Texas porch in July.

It wasn't for lack of trying or talent, it just failed to understand the material or simply wasn't able to translate it to film (and I just gotta say, I don't care if BoC is Willis' favorite book, he can't pull off Dwayne Hoover and his presence, while being the sole reason for this adaptation's existence, kills the film, from his acting to his obvious control over it behind the scenes as a producer and a financier). Imagine if William H. Macy was in it. That might be a good film. Try to avoid the temptation to see if this group can pull the movie off. They can't and you will be left unfulfilled and depressed, or even p*ssed off. Like I was.

Though it's bound for negative comparison with the sober, Joe Pro, Oscar-friendly AMERICAN BEAUTY, I vastly preferred Alan Rudolph's vision of suburban life gone bonkers. His adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's best (and most scabrous) novel starts with one genius style choice: Rudolph mates the Pop Art Expressionism of Oliver Stone with the group-hug ensemble of his mentor, Robert Altman. Beneath the blizzard of smily-face pins, digital-display Colonel Sanders, and chain-diner Muzak lies a Tiffany cast. Bruce Willis is the face of desperation under a stick-on grin as the car-salesman hero, Dwayne Hoover, a small-town hero who doesn't know why he's a few cards short of a full deck. As his second banana, Nick Nolte is a dream as a hard-working joe who's so guilty about his sexual kinks they seem to leak out of him like flopsweat. And as the movie's resident seer and soothsayer--a derelict sci-fi genius named Kilgore Trout--Albert Finney is so perfect Rudolph seems to have plucked him from out of an Iowa City dumpster.

Rudolph's attempts at stars-and-stripes Expressionism don't all work; some uncharitable folks will be reminded of late-sixties I-hate-America bashes like END OF THE ROAD. But I have always had a soft spot for those pictures, and I feel protective toward BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS as well. Blessings are showered upon Bruce Willis for scratching this dark-horse project out of thin air, and upon Rudolph too. He must have known that propelling himself out of his usual world of downbeat, canoodling romanticism would pull out of him the best work of his career.

I have been reading these comments and it seems to me that this is indicative of the problem with the film-going public today. How can you NOT know about Breakfast of Champions? How could you expect a standard Hollywood movie? Someone here said that Willis should have spent his time making Die Hard 4 - Well, budy, I got news for ya - YOU SHOULDN't HAVE RENTED THIS MOVIE!!! Do a little research and you would havce known that this movie was based on a fairly subversive piece of literature, that it is completely non-linear - oh yeah - and ThAT IT WAS BAD!!