Review of Bonfire Of The Vanities

Video

Regular readers of my utterances will know that I have a particular affection for Bruce Willis, in the platonic movie-goer type way. I realise he`s not the best actor in the world, nor is he classically trained or particularly gifted when it comes to playing anyone other than Bruce Willis. This never hindered Micheal Caine`s career, however, and I think that if the character of the actor himself is strong and likeable enough, then why not allow them to play themselves on the big screen repeatedly for huge sums of cash?
One of the reasons I was keen to see the Brian de Palma movie adaptation of Tom Wolfe`s novel "Bonfire of the Vanities" is that it features Brucey not playing a man in a vest with a large gun saving the town / girl / world / universe. On the downside it has got Tom Hanks in it, but I can usually tolerate anything with him in it by glancing away from the screen and humming loudly whenever he`s in a scene, which isn`t too distracting for other people watching with me, I`m sure. The plot has some familiar slices of other books / movies about it - there weren`t quite enough of these to call it a genre - but those of you cogniscent during the late 80`s and early 90`s will recognise bits of "Bonfire" in "Trading places" and "Falling down" amongst others, but "Bonfire" was the first. Basically the lead character is played by Hanks (look away now) who is an extremely succesful bonds trader on the New York Stock Exchange, Sherman McCoy. Sherman makes very big bucks and lives in great style. It`s one of the tongue-in-cheek cornerstones of the movie that he privately considers himself to be one of the "Masters of the Universe", such is his financial acumen. Things go very wrong for Sherman when he takes a wrong turn on the freeway after collecting his slut mistress (Melanie Griffith) from the airport and ends up in the South Bronx as opposed to Manhattan. Two black guys offer to help him, slut panics and runs one of them down with the Merc - he later dies in hospital. Unfortunately he lives long enough to rememeber part of the number plate on Shermans car. Before you know it we have an over-zealous DA who is desperate for the black vote to get him elected as mayor ordering his department to pursue McCoy to the ends of the earth. McCoy loses the $6m flat, socialite junkie wife, big bucks job etc. etc..
Morgan Freeman gives an excellent performance as the judge - any real social commentary Tom Wolfe was trying to make comes from his lips.
Oh yes - Brucey.... he plays the jorunalist who breaks the story and covers the progress of the trial and eventually provides the evidence that it was in fact Shermans` Mistress who flattened the pedestrian. Throw in an excellent Performance from John Norman as the evangelical vox populi Reverend Bacon and you`ve got a highly entertaining couple of hours..

Audio

Dolby Stereo, no soundtrack in terms of music anyway...

Features

There`s nothing for you here....

Conclusion

I think this is one of those movies it would be better to watch without having read the book first - Tom Wolfe`s novel is very long (726 pages) - and it just can`t be condensed efficiently into 2 hours without huges chunks being lopped off. Nevertheless, It`s certainly worth an evening of your time, particularly if you want to remember what a yuppie looked and lived like, or how big mobile phones used to be. Slightly dated, but that doesn`t stop me eating from my fridge..