The Bonfire of the Vanities

Dir: Brian De Palma

1990

**

I liked Brian De Palma's neo-noir style in his adaptation of Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities and the cinematography is among some of the most underrated of all time in my opinion. However, pretty much everything else is horrible. I'm a sucker for cheesy 90's films but The Bonfire of the Vanities misses every single target it aims at. I didn't love the novel but after all the various changes in story and in the characters, it's a masterpiece in comparison. Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith are all cool in my book but all three were woefully miscast. I don't think their acting is entirely to blame, they were each paid to do what they did best in 1990, it's just that what they did (which was very popular at the time) just didn't match the characters. Before Bruce Willis was cast, both jack Nicholson and John Cleese were offered his part, suggesting that they really didn't have a clear vision of what the character should be. The tagline was 'An outrageous story of greed, lust and vanity in America' but it really wasn't any of these things. F. Murray Abraham even had his name removed from the credits. The big problem is the films take on the racial issues raised in the book. It should have been quite a dark satire but the changes made it into an awkward and juxtaposed mess of convoluted and contrived ideas. A lack of focus, lack of control, lack of confidence and a brattish Bruce Willis were said to be the reasons behind the film's lack of success, which is a real shame as second unit director Eric Schwab produced some of the most beautiful visuals ever committed to film. The fact that he probably shouldn't have been given the money or opportunity to experiment as much as he did goes some way in suggesting the mess the production was in but for that opening scene, the time-lapse scene over Manhattan and the Concorde landing at sunset scene, it almost seems worth it. Almost.