The quintessential action hero and rising movie stars of the late 80s and 90s, Bruce Willis and Tom Hanks, had taken an infamous and heavily celebrated fictional novel from 1987 – Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities and starred in the eponymous film only to be ruthlessly bullied into submission and critical failure by the press and media of the time.
The film was not yet out by the time the people’s verdict doomed Bonfire. Unfortunately, it seems even Willis and Hanks have also come to the same conclusion – deriding the film into accepting its preordained fate.
Bruce Willis Cannot Forgive His Panned 1990 Film
Despite the infamy in which the 1987 source text was shrouded throughout its 3-year long installment-wise publication in Rolling Stone (later heavily revised before the novel’s publication in October 1987), the 1990 film adapted for the screen by Brian De Palma failed to bring in a similarly enthusiastic reception from the crowd.
Bruce Willis claimed that among other reasons, the casting choices of the lead duo had a primary role to play in the malignment of the mass and media opinion.
“It was stillborn, dead before it ever got out of the box. It was another film that was reviewed before it hit the screen. The critical media didn’t want to see a movie that cast the literary world in a shady light. But they were right. I was miscast. I know that Tom Hanks thinks he was, too.
The movie was based on a great book. But one problem with the story, when it came to the film, was that there was no one in it you could root for. In most successful movies, there’s someone to cheer on.”
Willis grew to hate the film with such an unparalleled vehemence that he outright came out and claimed, “The only movie I would not do again, given the opportunity, is Bonfire of the Vanities.” The Die Hard star was not alone in his grief as Tom Hanks had issued a similar declaration calling it “one of the crappiest movies ever made.”
Bonfire of the Vanities Fails To Replicate Its Text’s Intensity
The Tom Wolfe novel, which stands out as a social critique on issues of race and class and the many facets of the legal system working to bring justice to those who seek it, was a complete narrative arc with an essential thread of relevance tying the entire plot together. Wolfe’s text was primarily inspired by several race-driven shootings and murders of Black individuals and youths across predominantly white American neighborhoods.
However, the film sought to bring the tenacity and grit of the text to its fullest form while also attempting to keep it irreverent, amusing, witty, fun, and satirical in its commentary for the sake of the audience. The plot simply couldn’t hold up to a grueling examination of its shortcomings simply because there were too many. The Bonfire of the Vanities holds a paltry 15% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Bonfire of the Vanities is available for streaming on the Roku Channel.
Source: The Oprah Winfrey Show
