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Plot Summary
Today's hottest film stars -- two-time Academy Award-winner Tom Hanks ("Catch Me if You Can," "The Green Mile"), Bruce Willis ("The Sixth Sense," "Die Hard"), and Academy Award-nominee Melanie Griffith ("Working Girl," "Pacific Heights") and Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman ("Million Dollar Baby," "Unforgiven") -- star in the Brian De Palma ("Mission: Impossible," "Scarface") film based on the #1 bestseller by Tom Wolfe. Co-starring Golden Globe-nominee Kim Cattrall ("Sex and the City"), Alan King ("Casino"), Mary Alice ("I'll Fly Away") and Kirsten Dunst ("Mona Lisa Smile," "Spider-man" 1 & 2 ).
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Director
Screenwriter
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Rotten Tomatoes Movie Reviews
TOMATOMETER
16%- Reviews Counted: 50
- Fresh: 8
- Rotten: 42
- Average Rating: 3.9/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Rotten: By being consistent, the novel transcends its own cynicism to become healthily skeptical. This is just what Brian De Palma's gross, unfunny movie adaptation does not do.
Rotten: One of the most indecently bad movies of the year.
Rotten: On film, Bonfire achieves a consistency of ineptitude rare even in this era of over-inflated cinematic air bags.
Rotten: Brian De Palma's take on Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities is a misfire of inanities.
Customer Reviews
Under-rated movie.
This movie never seems to have gotten the respect it deserved. It burns the wall street big shots, the shallow and self important blow hards of New York high society, politicians, and even an "Al Sharpton"-like character shamelessly using the plight of an "innocent" minority individual to selfishly promote his own political stature. Many good scenes, such as when when the cops come to visit Sherman, when Sherman decides to end his wife's social event with a shotgun, and the last scene when the judge brings down judgement on everyone. Most of all this movie is an indictment of the press, that slimy profession, which seeks to manipulate everyone and never provides the whole truth for one simple reason ... it doesn't sell.
Bonfire of the Vanities
While I do remember this movie keeping me entertained, I was never able to get past one of the worst movie decisions I can recall. In the book, the character played by Bruce Willis was very intriguing specifically because he was English. His views on America were insightful, witty and challenged the reader to think. For some reason, Hollywood decided this didn't sell and made the character Bruce Willis with no accent?? The movie must be punished for this reason alone. Do yourself a favor, read the book. A great read that far outpaces the screenplay.
Far from the best - but also, FAR from the worst!
The movie did a good job of portraying an award winning book by an award winning author. Although it is true that the cast of actors have all had better films, all the actors did a good job portraying their characters. I particularly liked Morgan Freeman's admonishment to the courtroom about Justice and Tom Hank's realization that his fall from grace happened 1000X faster than the climb took to get there. I saw a real correlation between Tom Hanks character in the movie and the real life tribulations of Tiger Woods. I would recommend this film for your library, or at least highly recommend it as a rental.
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- $14.99
- Genre: Comedy
- Released: 2004
- © 1990 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.