Review of The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) by Gregory G — 18 Oct 2014

An unmitigated disaster and complete bowdlerization of Tom Wolfe's best-selling novel that turns the satirical tale of reckless Wall Street greed, undone by self-serving racial politics, into heavy-handed moralism.

Adapted by Michael Christofer and Produced and Directed by Brian De Palma, the end result - one of the worst book to film adaptations - is a series of compromises and miscalculations. In almost every major role, the casting is wrong-headed.

Virtuous Tom Hanks is ruinous as the deceitful, narcissistic bond trader Sherman McCoy, who flees from an accident in the Bronx leaving a black youth incapacitated, setting off a sanctimonious pursuit for justice.

McCoy is more likable, but less compelling, as he has been made into a hapless victim. The complex characters of Wolfe's novel have been reduced to caricatures - both racist and misogynistic. Melanie Griffith is annoyingly shrill as Hanks' lover; Bruce Willis is feckless as the alcoholic reporter; Kim Cattrall is monotonous; Morgan Freeman is wasted.

(Freeman's big scene concludes with an address to the courtroom, in which he lectures us on ethics, that is embarrassing.) Wolfe's contempt for Wall Street excess has been cheapened. New York's omnipresent racial and social tension, caused by a callous disregard for the minority underclass by privileged whites, has been fatally softened.

De Palma incorporates his virtuoso long tracking shots, split screens, and incongruous framing to minimal effect. Willis supplies the terrible narration. Cinematography is by Vilmos Zsigmond. Music is by Dave Grusin.

With Saul Rubinek, Alan King, John Hancock as Rev. Bacon, Donald Moffat, Andre Gregory, Kirsten Dunst, Geraldo Rivera, Rita Wilson, and an uncredited F Murray Abraham. (Julie Salamon documented the making of the movie, a fascinating and insightful insider view of how a movie can fail so miserably, in the book "The Devil's Candy: Anatomy Of A Hollywood Fiasco.

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