The Bonfire of the Vanities
After his mistress runs over a black teen, a Wall Street hotshot sees his life unravel in the spotlight; A down-and-out reporter breaks the story and opportunists clamber to use it to their advantage.
Critics Sentiment
Peter Fallow drunkenly navigates hotel with handlers leaving chaos
Morgan Freeman delivers morality lecture to courtroom crowd
The film's steepest decline occurs from the tape recording revelation to Judge White's sanctimonious courtroom lecture, dropping nearly 3 points as critics found the moral grandstanding insulting.
Critics found the film started promisingly with engaging opening sequences but quickly deteriorated due to severe miscasting and heavy-handed execution of the source material's social satire. The film reached its nadir with Morgan Freeman's preachy courtroom speech, which reviewers universally condemned as pompous and contrived. While some appreciated the attempt at social commentary about corruption and media manipulation, most felt De Palma's adaptation reduced nuanced satire to cartoonish caricatures.
Full cast
Showing 20 of 86
Tom Hanks
Sherman McCoy
Bruce Willis
Peter Fallow
Melanie Griffith
Maria Ruskin
Kim Cattrall
Judy McCoy
Saul Rubinek
Jed Kramer
Morgan Freeman
Judge Leonard White
John Hancock
Reverend Bacon
Kevin Dunn
Tom Killian
Clifton James
Albert Fox
Louis Giambalvo
Ray Andruitti
Barton Heyman
Det. Martin
Norman Parker
Det. Goldberg
Donald Moffat
Mr. McCoy
Alan King
Arthur Ruskin
Beth Broderick
Caroline Heftshank
Kurt Fuller
Pollard Browning
Adam LeFevre
Rawlie Thorpe
Richard Libertini
Ed Rifkin
Andre Gregory
Aubrey Buffing
Mary Alice
Annie Lamb
Crew
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