BoardChiri
Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
Lidia Draper
Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
Marva-nova
Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.
calvinnme
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.
Leofwine_draca
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.
Predrag
"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.
donlessnau-591-637730
A very under-rated and under appreciated movie.No other movie out there quite captures the phony and insincere hypocrisy of today's media and advocacy groups better than this one.The only people who don't like this film are the ones who the film is satirizing. This movie, like Hollywood Shuffle, was way ahead of its time.Like most accurate and truthful books and films, they are rarely appreciated in their day because the brutal honesty and truthfulness of what they have to say is too painful to openly accept and admit. It is a classic satire and incredibly well-written and well-acted.I would recommend this film to anyone.
