Great movie! Why is it hated?!

Everything here was uneven: the humor was pure cheese, bordering on cartoon (Melanie Griffith was terrible), but had moments that were darkly funny. It felt like an R-rated kids movie. I thought Tom Hanks was not only miscast but did a poor job. Morgan Freeman was great, though, so was the mayoral candidate. The pacing was all over the place, after the first 30 minutes the movie acted like it was going somewhere, then ran in place for an hour before a quick rap-up.

It was well directed for what it is, and the opening titles and a few shots were impressive. As for your last point, I loved The Wolf of Wall Street (a movie about rich, upper class people with over-the-top acting).

And I knew nothing about this movie or book going in, liked it at first but it grew tiresome, 4/10. And your point about americans is ridiculous, BTW.

"it's" is not the same as "its"

You need more schooling.



"I will not go down in history as the greatest mass-murderer since Adolf Hitler!" - Merkin Muffley

Because it's dreadfully unfunny, unfocused, disjointed, mostly dull, hammy, rather poorly acted and completely toothless as satire. It's even visually unimpressive and that's the kind of thing that very rarely happens with De Palma.



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

Nah, this movie is excellent. I spent my teenage years outside of America and was becoming a movie nerd at the time ('90's) and thus I didn't know what critics or audiences in the US would say about a movie. So when I got around to renting Bonfire, I really loved it. It was good acting, funny, and very relevant. Later on when I moved back to America I found out that this movie had flopped and was hated. I didn't understand why. I now am sure that its "herd mentality." Kind of like how John Carter is an excellent movie but is considered a flop. Casino by Martin Scorsese also flopped in America. It made $42 mil on a $50 mil budget. But its #144 in top rated movies on IMDb.

That's probably why you liked it. You hadn't read the book. Read the book and you'll see why a lot of people didn't like it.

It holds up a vicious, darkly satiric mirror to a part of liberal American society of which some write movie reviews. It's no masterpiece, but hated more because of that than being poor just cinema. The entire cast is great.

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/khmrlx/brian_de_palmas_the_bonfire_of_the_vanities_turns/

*The screenplay is heavy handed beyond belief. Despite being envisioned and billed as a dark comedy, the constant hammering of the movie's themes don't have satirical bite but are instead woefully depressing to watch. From mere social commentary about depressingly grim political problems of the city (such that feel pretty reductive, in that it seems to be a simplistic "black v white" scenario given the lack of context from the book) to references about art and opera, the jokes collapse upon themselves before impacting thanks to being too obvious. Not to mention the inclusion of broad slapstick, courtesy of De Palma trying to satisfy commercial audiences.

*De Palma has a lot of talent, but I can't begin to wonder how he thought taking this on was a good idea. His best work lies in his slow, atmospheric, voyeuristic Hitchcock-style thrillers, and none of those terms help this film at all. Especially slow. This movie wouldn't feel so painful if it also didn't feel twice as long as it did.

*Tom Hanks (I can see why this could have ended his career when it came out--he really takes a lot of the film's flaws with him) is too much of a nice guy and too familiar of a presence to fit the role of Sherman McCoy.

*Melanie Griffith overdoses her role as the dim trophy wife.

*What and why is Bruce Willis in this? (He's a drunkard, eh? What's it to you?) What is this narrative framing device he uses when he's barely in the movie? (I know why, but the execution feels too wrong.)

*The orchestra soundtrack is wrong on every level for this. Especially as a comedy.

I like Brian De Palma's iconic and easily distinguishable directing style, but he wasn't the right fit for the material. He didn't work with the actors very well, most of them are poorly cast in their roles, notably Hanks. The story just doesn't go anywhere either. I didn't think the climax was even supposed to be climax until the credits started rolling because it doesn't feel like the epic ending to a movie. The comedy also rarely works. It's not a horrible movie and not among the worst ever made or anything, just boring an unmemorable.