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Too much of everything

That was an excellent one.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

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.

"The Bonfire Of The Vanities" is an underrated gem directed by Brian DePalma (Scarface), and featuring an all-star cast including Academy Award winners Tom Hanks (Big, Forrest Gump), Morgan Freeman (Driving Miss Daisy), F. Murray Abraham (Amadeus), and a supporting cast including Bruce Willis (Die Hard), Melanie Griffith (Shining Through), and Kim Cattrall (Turk 182). The story depicts a decaying society infested with racism, greed, hypocrisy, and corruption. The particular society in focus here is New York City, where an incident that signifies a major clash between the white upper class and the black lower class becomes media dinner. Hanks plays Sherman McCoy, a wealthy businessman who cheats on his wife, played by Cattrall, with another rich man's wife Maria Ruskin, played by Griffith. The Bonfire Of the Vanities has no heroes. All the characters in the movie symbolize very dirty and corrupt people. The only voice of wisdom in the film is the judge, played by Freeman, hot off his Oscar nominated performance in Driving Miss Daisy, who gives a convincing speech at the end of the movie.The direction by Brian De Palma is brilliant, starting with the camera panorama sweeping across nighttime Manhattan from the top of the Chrysler Building with closeups of it's gargoyles, and ending with great elegant tuxedo and gowns for the ladies crowd scene of astonishing elegance and pomp made even greater by the background music (the music in this film is one of it's many great assets). The set decorations tell the "good taste" story in wonderful (and expensive) detail, and the script showing well educated, well mannered people speaking up and speaking out tells the "good taste" story verbally. "Bonfire Of Vanities" is an example of a latter day Hollywood major studio movie which succeeds in all ways, except for the way it was sold, and for the unjustified defamation it got from people close to it.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

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.

Thanks to this film, I have now resolved to avoid film adaptations whenever possible. I saw the film on release and walked out of the theatre. Tom Hanks is passable. Melanie Griffith's awful Southern accent is distracting. Bruce Willis is horribly miscast as a wry British journalist. We should be thankful that he doesn't attempt a British accent, but without the outsider status and the subtlety that such a role demands, Willis falls flat. DePalma takes the novel's wry winks and turns them into desperate leers. It's like Steve Martin in character as The Jerk is sitting next to me in the theatre with a laser pointer saying say "LOOK! HOW FUNNY!!!".If I could bring myself to watch the film again, I could go on and on pointing out particular moments that irked me into walking out on this film (something I very rarely do). Fat chance.I realize that many folks out there will have never read Wolfe's excellent book, and if you haven't, this film might work as passable farce. If you HAVE read the book, you will very likely hate this film.