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Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Kim Cattrall, Morgan Freeman ... see more see more... , Saul Rubinek , F Murray Abraham , John Hancock , Kevin Dunn , Clifton James , Louis Giambalvo , Barton Heyman , Norman Parker , Donald Moffat , Alan King , Beth Broderick , Kurt Fuller , Adam Le Fevre , Richard Libertini , Andre Gregory , Rita Wilson , Kimberleigh Aarn , Mary Alice , John Blythe Barrymore , Jennifer Bassey , Paul Bates , Richard Belzer , John Bentley , Scotty Bloch , Katrina Braque , Jeff Brooks , Judith Burke , Edye Byrde , Debbie Lee Carrington , Channing Chase , O. Laron Clark , Joy Claussen , T.J. Coan , Johnny Crear , Vito D'Ambrosio , Kathryn Danielle , Roy Milton Davis , Anatoly Davydov , Brian DePalma , Oliver Dixon , Kirsten Dunst , Hal England , John Fink , Walter Flanagan , Susan Forristal , Staci Francis , Richard Gilbert-Hill , Barbara Gooding , Fanni Green , Daniel Hagen , Mike Hodge , W.M. Hunt , Ray Iannicelli , Ernestine Jackson , Sam Jenkins , Timothy Jenkins , Joyce Walker , Jon Rashad Kamal , James Lally , Louis P. Lebherz , Doris Leggett , Noble Lee Lester , Nickolas Levitin , Shiek Mahmud-Bey , Patrick Malone , Camryn Manheim , Cynthia Mason , Malachy McCourt , Nancy McDonald , Don McManus , Barry Michlin , Marcia Mitzman , Marjorie Monaghan , Lorraine Moore , Virginia Morris , Barry Neikrug , Novella Nelson , Elizabeth Owens , Kathleen Murphy Palmer , Sherri Paysinger , George Plimpton , Geraldo Rivera , Hansford Rowe , Connie Sawyer , Gian-Carlo Scandiuzzi , Helen Stenborg , Robert Stephens , Kirk Taylor , Nelson Vasquez , Ermal Williamson , Adina Winston , William Woodson , J.D. Wyatt , Emmanuel Xuereb , Stewart J. Zully , William Clark , David Lipman , Sarah Essex , Troy Winbush , Marie Chambers , George Merritt , John Hancock I

Brian De Palma's Hollywood sanitization of Tom Wolfe's scabrous satire stars Tom Hanks as Sherman McCoy, the "master of the universe," a shallow Wall Street investor who makes millions while enjoying ... read more read more...the good life and the sexual favors of Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith), a Southern belle golddigger. Sherman and Maria are driving back to Maria's apartment from the airport when Maria takes a wrong turn on the expressway and the two find themselves in the South Bronx. She sees a black youth approaching Sherman's car and Maria, frightened, guns the engine, running over the teenager and killing him. The two drive away and decide not to report the accident to the police. Meanwhile, indigent alcoholic journalist Peter Fallow (Bruce Willis), anxious for a story to make good with his editor, comes upon the hit-and-run tale through local black community activist, Reverend Bacon (John Hancock). Bacon plans to use the hit-and-run case as a rallying point for the black community, while Fallow recognizes the press coverage inherent in prosecuting the callow Sherman. As Sherman is brought to his knees, the New York community fragments into different factions who use the case to suit their own cynical political purposes. Finally, Sherman is left without any allies to support him except for the sympathetic Judge White (Morgan Freeman) and the remorseful Fallow. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

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27% liked it

11,502 ratings

Critics

23% liked it

31 critics

R, 2 hr. 6 min.

Directed by: Brian DePalma

Release Date: December 21, 1990

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DVD Release Date: November 6, 2001

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Flixster Reviews (315)

  • kenstachnik
    April 5, 2011
    kenstachnik
    Bonfire of the Vanities is not the tumbling shit-fest you've been told it is. In fact the film is pretty funny and shot really nicely. It's not without it's flaws, Hanks is a bit mis cast and Kim Cattrall is downright terrible. It's no American Psycho, but if you're in the mood f... read moreor a bit of 80's satire, I'd say check it out.
  • ythelastman89
    March 30, 2010
    ythelastman89
    In no way is it the disaster that most people claim it to be. In fact, itā??s actually a very well done criticism of the 80s yuppie lifestyle as well as racism, sex and politics. You have to feel sorrow for Tom Hanksā?? Sherman McCoy, who accidentally gets himself into the bigges... read moret scandal of the time. While he might be prejudiced, in no way does he deserve to be put through all the anguish that he is subjected to. I love the idea of the Jewish District Attorney trying to win the minority vote by charging an innocent man as well as his assistant who has no shame in getting all the false evidence he can gather. Melanie Griffith was amazing as an incredibly over the top seductress and Bruce Willis plays a great drunk. Brian De Palma does a great job creating a captivating set of shots that are both original and fun to watch.
  • deano
    December 17, 2007
    deano
    Tom Wolfe's novel has been shaped into a trivial, cartoon-style movie by director Brian De Palma. This savage comedy is ridiculous and worst film with Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith I ever saw as well as their characters aren't very interesting.
  • jusstpete
    May 19, 2012
    jusstpete
    Melanie Griffith was amazing as an incredibly over the top seductress and Bruce Willis plays a great drunk. Brian De Palma does a great job creating a captivating set of shots that are both original and fun to watch. Hanks is a bit mis cast and Kim Cattrall is downright terrible.... read more It's no American Psycho, but if you're in the mood for a bit of 80's satire, I'd say check it out.
  • tamsonhouse
    December 4, 2011
    tamsonhouse
    Terrible satiric movie, perhaps the brothers Coen could have made something of it, I don't know. Extra star given for Melanie Griffith's body and tits, goddamn.
  • jamesgigler
    August 30, 2011
    jamesgigler
    tom, bruce and morgan at their finest in more of a story then a movie by this I mean don't expect some crazy action or bizarre twist it's a story with great acting nothing more nothing less
  • PinkMinkPrincess
    July 19, 2011
    PinkMinkPrincess
    I know People this Vain! I found this Movie to be a Hoot of a Spoof off the Excess of the 80's.It was Well Written, Outrageous Fun & I don't care who doesn't agree with me.I sopped up every Delicious Minute with a Spoon & my Pinky Out & Proud !
  • MorpheusOne
    November 22, 2009
    MorpheusOne
    I'm amazed that this movie received such a high number of downer reviews. It is very funny! Something of a dark comedy, but not really. A completely realistic story about a large number of amoral, smarmy, and apathetic characters, ignorant and arrogant as all hell, all in their o... read morewn ways & idiosyncrasies so much that it makes you want to choke them!

    The acting was superb and the story was excellent. If I could find the book I would definitely pick it up!
  • nicholasvargo1
    September 21, 2007
    nicholasvargo1
    I'm about to do the unthinkable. I'm going to give one of the most notorious movies ever made a very positive review. The movie is Brian DePalma's The Bonfire of the Vanities.

    But before we get into it, let's go back to when the movie was made. It was made by Warner Bros. at a... read more time where they believed that you could take liberties with the source material and get away with it. The source material in this case was a popular and influential novel written by Tom Wolfe. From the moment the project was announced, there was controversy. Screenwriter Michael Cristofer took liberties with the source material by making the characters likeable, Bruce Willis was cast in a role that was written to be a British character like the book, and the character of the judge was changed from Jewish to African American to make the film less controversial. When the film opened on December 21, 1990, it was a critical and commercial failure. At the time, many people had just finished reading Wolfe's book and they were angry with the treatment it had received. The film disappeared quickly after that as a result. A year later, Julie Salomon, the only media person who had an all-access pass to the behind the scenes madness, wrote a tell-all book entitled 'The Devil's Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood', which detailed the film's production from casting to the last of the dismal reviews.

    The best way to find enjoyment in this film is to just forget that Tom Wolfe ever wrote a book of the same name, because if you've read it and you let that get in the way of your judgement of the movie, then you will despise it completely, but in all fairness, the movie captures Wolfe's basic outline of the story and runs with it.

    The film stars Tom Hanks as Sherman McCoy, Wall Street's Master of the Universe who lives in a $6,000,000+ apartment on Park Ave. with his wife Judy (Kim Cattrall) and his seven-year-old daughter Campbell (a very young Kirsten Dunst). In his alone time, Sherman spends time with his mistress Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith), a Southern woman with Southern feelings. One night, after Sherman picks her up from the airport, they miss the turnoff into Manhattan and make a wrong turn in the Bronx, where they are threatened by two young African American guys. When they get back to Manhattan, Sherman worries that they might have accidently hit him with the car when they escaped. The next morning, one of the guys Henry Lamb ends up in a coma, classified likely to die. This gets the attention of Assistant District Attorney Kramer (Saul Rubinek), the Al Sharpton-inspired Reverand Bacon (John Hancock), and attorney Albert Fox (Clifton James), who ends up handing the story to down-on-his-luck reporter Peter Fallow (Bruce Willis) to break out. Once the story breaks, Sherman's life is turned upside down as he basically becomes the most hated man in New York City. At the same time, District Attorney Abe Weiss (an uncredited F. Murray Abraham) decides to use the story for political gain in order to try and put Sherman away in jail one way or another.

    The story gets very complicated, but it's very interesting in the way it presents how people will do just about anything to get what they want. In terms of what the filmmakers were trying to do, they succeed almost entirely in my opinion, except for two things. One, turning Wolfe's satiric character creations in likeable characters was the wrong way to go. In a way, Hanks especially is playing a character that is not very likeable. DePalma tries hard to make his character likeable, but he forgets that tycoon-type characters like him are not supposed to be likeable. See Gordon Gekko in Wall Street to understand my point.

    Which leads me into the film's other major problem. Melanie Griffith is completely miscast as Maria Ruskin. She tries her best, but she completely misses the juice that is supposed to make that character fly. In 'The Devil's Candy', Brian DePalma revealed that the reason Griffith was cast was because "she would bring the unexpected to the part", but she never gets the character right. It also didn't help that in the middle of the shoot that she had breast implants, which ruined some of the film's continuity in the process. Believe it or not, Uma Thurman, who was only 19 at the time, auditioned for this part and almost got it. I think that if she got the role, she would've made it her own.

    Now Bruce Willis actually does somewhat well in the role of Peter Fallow. He gets the idea of what his character is supposed to be, as he wants to be an honest reporter who doesn't have to spin the truth. As a result, he creates a character that is quite human. He even has a scene with Tom Hanks on the subway that shows that quality out as he makes sure that Sherman gets home all right. He also serves as the film's narrator, and he is perfect to narrate the film because he is the one who knows all of the details that no one else would know. For a character that was originally written to be English, Willis is able to make it his own.

    The supporting cast is excellent, and I find that Morgan Freeman as the Judge and F. Murray Abraham as Abe Weiss come off the best. They make the roles their own. Freeman is the voice of reason as the Judge. At the end of the film, he has a speech about decency and what it should mean to the public of the Bronx. It's a hard scene to pull off, but only someone like him could miraculously pull it off. Abraham also embodies the character of Abe Weiss. You could see that he does things only for his interest and it feels like that to us. But he makes that role his own. Surprisingly, the only reason he goes uncredited on the film is because he wanted his name above the title or he didn't want to be credited at all. It's a shame really because he's the one who steals the whole show.

    The rest of the supporting cast, from Kevin Dunn to John Hancock to Saul Rubinek to Kim Cattrall, are able to make their own characters work because they know who they are and they know what they want. Even walk-on cameos from Geraldo Rivera and Richard Belzer take their moments and run with them.

    Without Brian DePalma at the helm of the film, there would be no praise for these performances. His career has had ups and downs (and it is currently down thanks to The Black Dahlia, which is way worse than The Bonfire of the Vanities ever was), but here, he was trying something very different that he hadn't done since the beginning of his career. Here, he was striving to be controversial. In fact, just like the book, the film was supposed to be an "equal opportunity offender", which meant that there would be something in it to offend everybody. No one is safe in this movie, and if you're not offended by this movie by the end, then you've missed the point.

    To his credit, screenwriter Michael Cristofer wrote a good script while following Wolfe's storyline fairly closely. The other evening, I read a shooting script draft of the film up at dailyscript.com and I was surprised by how much Cristofer's script actually appears in the movie with only a few deletions (the only scene deleted from the film that should've been kept was a sword fight scene at the end of the picture that would've given a more definitive ending to the film had it been kept). For the most part, Cristofer's script was more or less realized by DePalma in the final edit.

    In the technical department, the film is a flat-out masterpiece. This is not because the film has visual effects, but this is more because the film's cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond and editing by David Ray and Bill Pankow. The film opens with two of the most extraordinary shots in the history of cinema. The first shot is a time lapse shot of New York City from the point of view of the Chrystler Building gargoyle where the title of the film forms. The very next shot is a four minute and twenty-one second Steadicam shot that follows a very drunk Peter Fallow through a labyrinth of corridors that lead up to a banquet in his honor. These two shots alone make the movie worth the price of admission. There is also a scene that takes place in a office shot from the ceiling down that gives a perfect claustrophobic feel throughout. There is also a pan down scene where we are introduced to Reverand Bacon that feels right and wrong at the same time. Then there is a split screen sequence that takes place while Reverand Bacon sets up his demonstration. It's shots like these that make the movie only one that Brian DePalma could make. It feels like his movie from beginning to end.

    Then there is the music. At first, you might think that the music that Dave Grusin wrote for the film is all wrong for it, but the more music you hear, the more you realize that it sounds absolutely perfect with what you are seeing. The film needs a classical/New York type feeling throughout in order for the score to work. Take into account the moment Sherman finds out that the incident has gotten out in the paper. He is shocked, and you hear it right in the music at the same time. The music is so good, and I'm proud to say that I own this soundtrack and I listen to it every chance I get.

    When the film failed, it shocked the community of Hollywood. Even DePalma's best friend Steven Spielberg thought that the film was the best black comedy since 'Dr. Strangelove'. It was a $47 million project that didn't deserve to fail, but it failed because of the dismal reviews it received. Despite most of the reviews being pans, Roger Ebert was somewhat more fair about it by calling it "a digest version of Wolfe's novel" and giving it two and a half stars.

    In the end, The Bonfire of the Vanities is one of DePalma's better efforts, and although it doesn't rank up there with The Untouchables or even Scarface, it comes close. For maximum enjoyment of the film, it's best to forget that Tom Wolfe even wrote a novel of the same name and just enjoy the film for what it is.
  • cp1923
    August 13, 2007
    cp1923
    it was a good story badly executed, and also im surprised because this movie had really good actors in it.

View All The Bonfire of the Vanities Reviews

Critic Reviews

Dennis Schwartz
April 8, 2009
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Has more embarrassing moments than good ones. Full Review

Cole Smithey
September 4, 2008
Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com

Ugh, what a dog.

Paul Schrodt
September 10, 2006
Paul Schrodt, Slant Magazine

De Palma's characterizations may not have the subtle tongue-in-cheek wit of Tom Wolfe, but his version of the story is both more comic and angrier for it. Full Review

Chuck O'Leary
January 24, 2006
Chuck O'Leary, Fantastica Daily

An interesting failure that's not as bad as its reputation. Speaks a lot of truth, but the tone is too broad.

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
August 30, 2004
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice

Michael Cristofer's screenplay eviscerates Tom Wolfe's forceful work of social criticism of its moral meaning.

Ken Hanke
November 20, 2003
Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

It's botched, but it's more interesting than assumed.

Fred Topel
July 14, 2003
Fred Topel, About.com

Not as bad as originally thought upon reflection. Somewhat compelling story of media manipulation. Nothing huge, but better than remembered.

Alex Sandell
May 30, 2003
Alex Sandell, Juicy Cerebellum

I thought it was an alright movie. The people that hated it hated it because they loved the book.

Jeffrey M. Anderson
February 27, 2003
Jeffrey M. Anderson, San Francisco Examiner

Totally misguided.

Forrest Hartman
November 15, 2002
Forrest Hartman, Reno Gazette-Journal

Dreadful screen adaptation of the terrific Tom Wolfe novel. Stands as one of Tom Hanks' worst screen performances.

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The Bonfire of the Vanities Trivia

  • Which Tom Hanks movie featured a young Kirsten Dunst?  Answer »
  • Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith & Bruce Willis on Wall Street?  Answer »
  • She acted with Tom Hanks in The Bonfire of the Vanities. Who is she?  Answer »
  • That is not in the film: THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES (1990)  Answer »
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