Saw The Bonfire of the Vanities, Brian De Palma film based on a book by Tom Wolfe, so expect a cynicism and worship of stockbrokers. True to form, this film follows a stockbroker who escapes from an attempted mugging by running over one of his would-be assailants. This blows up into a civil rights matter and the stockbroker's life is destroyed. The film is solid, but fairly cynical and, well, the stockbroker does come out looking good.
The film was made in 1990 (2 years before even Rodney King) but it has many echoes of modern times. Today, the millionaire Park Avenue stockbroker would be a much harder sell as the protagonist. In this film, the black mugger is treated as terrifying, the detour into the South Bronx looks like a trip to hell. There are cars burning and crazy people screaming into the car windows. It feels sort of uncomfortable but then again, this is the sort of film where no one comes off well. The Park Avenue set are portrayed as vapid, artificial, overwhelming, and self-absorbed. This is somewhat better than how the Bronx-ians come off (which is: monstrous) but it makes their depiction of a piece with the rest of the film.
Anyway, the film is very cynical. The poor and the rich alike, antagonists and protagonists are all completely self-interested and playing roles to extract the most value for themselves from the situation. It's a darkly comical premise, but it feels too cartoonish to tip fully into actionable satire. It's political commentary of the South Park style: everyone is corrupt, so why care? Just look out for yourself. And this is a viewpoint, I guess, but it's not very helpful. It's partly the fault of the source material but also of DePalma. There's a reason he wanted to shoot this film, after all.
There's also some confusing casting choices. The film is narrated by Bruce Willis who plays a sleazy, drunken journalist. The protagonist stockbroker is played by Tom Hanks, who is a hard sell as a stockbroker falling from grace, sweating through his shirt. The stockbroker's wife however is amazing as a hissing, crystalline Stepford Wife who smilingly informs the stockbroker "I'm leaving you. Right after this dinner party." Delicious.
De Palma is a masterful technician however and the camera work is tight and perfect. He makes excellent use of split screen for one scene to show the behind-the-camera drama at the same time as the televised event. He also does that double-exposure thing to show the foreground and the background in perfect focus together. It's great camerawork.
The rest is a little limp though. The film is definitely not bad. It's entertaining and dark and wry and a solid way to spend two hours, but it never really dazzled me. I feel Hudsucker Proxy is a more entertaining wacky satire, Network is better as social commentary, and the Sweet Smell of Success is better for delightfully dark comedy. This movie is a little of all of those things though, which is pretty good.
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