The Bonfire of the Vanities

The fall of a yuppie.

Self-absorbed, ridiculously carried-away trash that thinks it's way more edgy and pertinent than it actually is. An adaptation of a popular novel, it's clearly the victim of a studio mandate to swing hard, if not particularly accurately. It's loaded with starpower, with Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith and Morgan Freeman sharing the spotlight, but none can help their sailing astronomically over the top with the material. Each character is more selfish and despicable than the last, even Freeman's grandstanding judge and Hanks's over-his-head bond trader on trial as political fodder. Lofty hunks of social commentary are swung around with all the subtlety of a war hammer, belaboring the point until we all lay bruised, bloodied and beaten on the floor. Potentially-pointed stereotypes get played like aces, but fail to register as more than a long series of cartoon characters with a big vocabulary. It's confused, sneering and wretched; no surprise it could only attract flies at the box office.