The Bonfire of the Vanities

REVIEW
Based on Tom Wolfe's runaway best-seller, this absurdly uneven film adaptation by De Palma was one of the most anticipated releases of 1990, and created one of that year's loudest thuds. This satire on greed and justice is a disappointment on numerous levels. In one of the many ill-advised changes from the book, the miscast Hanks plays a basically likable Sherman McCoy, the Wall Street wizard who is thrust into the media spotlight when he and his mistress (Griffith) are involved in the hit-and-run of a black man. Willis makes an earnest stab at the now-American author Peter Fallow, the down-on-his-heels journalist who lucks into the story of the year.