SummaryAfter his mistress runs over a young teen, a Wall Street hotshot sees his life unravel in the spotlight and attracting the interest of a down and out reporter.
Directed By:Brian De Palma
Written By:Michael Cristofer, Tom Wolfe
The Bonfire of the Vanities
Metascore
Generally Unfavorable
27
User score
Mixed or Average
4.1
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Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Unfavorable
11% Positive
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
26% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
63% Negative
17 Reviews
17 Reviews
88
For all its polish, Bonfire of the Vanities neither sustains the feverish, revolutionary energy nor reaches the visceral peak of Hi, Mom! But as major Hollywood pictures go, it can become stunningly hot-tempered, a quality most journalists are too quick to ignore.
50
What's off about this latest De Palma work is that the movie can't be taken seriously. The characters are straight out of a comic strip and proceed through some cartoon-like situations. And so, viewed in this way, it becomes an enjoyable romp. [17 Dec 1990]
40
A spectacular misfire from a director who should have known better.
30
This is comic-book coverage. If the strength of the novel was the interplay between Wolfe's dry-white reportage and the sensational, tabloid-tacky humorous events he wrote about, "Vanities"-the-movie just goes for the tacky jugular.
25
De Palma plays both sides against the middle, and eventually the thing collapses. Instead of simply pursuing what seems to be his vision of the story, about a flawed but decent man getting martyred to a corrupt system, he tries not to offend and ends up making empty and confusing gestures. When at the end of this remarkably cynical movie, Morgan Freeman, as a principled trial judge, stands up and makes a speech about decency -- ''Decency is what your grandmother taught you'' -- it's hard not to laugh out loud. [21 Dec 1990, p.E1]
25
Director Brian De Palma’s $45 million film version of the book is superficial, shopworn and cartoonish. On film, Bonfire achieves a consistency of ineptitude rare even in this era of over-inflated cinematic air bags.
0
Up in smoke, down in flames, reduced to ashes - choose your disaster metaphor for Bonfire of the Vanities. As filmed by Brian De Palma, it's "Misfire of the Vanities," the most wrongly conceived of the many popular novels brought to the screen this year. [21 Dec 1990, p.49]
User score
Mixed or Average
8% Positive
1 Rating
1 Rating
58% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
33% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
Sep 13, 2024
3
Self-absorbed, ridiculously carried-away trash that thinks it's far more edgy and pertinent than it actually is. An adaptation of a popular novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities is clearly the victim of a studio mandate to swing hard, if not particularly accurately. It's loaded with starpower, with Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith and Morgan Freeman sharing the spotlight, but none can help their sailing astronomically over the top with the material. Each character is more selfish and despicable than the last, even Freeman's grandstanding judge and Hanks's over-his-head bond trader on trial as political fodder. Lofty hunks of social commentary are swung around with all the subtlety of a war hammer, belaboring the point until we all lay bruised, bloodied and beaten on the floor. Pointed stereotypes with potential are played like aces, but fail to register as more than a long series of cartoon characters with a big vocabulary. It's confused, sneering and wretched; no surprise it could only attract flies at the box office.
Production Company:
- Warner Bros.
Release Date:Dec 21, 1990
Duration:2 h 5 m
Rating:R
Tagline:Take one Wall Street tycoon, his Fifth Avenue mistress, a reporter hungry for fame, and make the wrong turn in The Bronx...then sit back and watch the sparks fly.
Awards
Razzie Awards
• 5 Nominations
The Stinkers Bad Movie Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
