Quartile rating: 5.5/10 · 1 rating
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.
Brian De Palma's adaptation of Tom Wolfe's biting novel is a well-documented Hollywood misfire. The source material's sharp social satire is largely defanged in translation — the plot retains the bones of the story but loses its teeth, feeling episodic and tonally inconsistent rather than savagely funny or dramatically compelling. The casting is widely considered a series of miscalculations (Tom Hanks miscast as Sherman McCoy, Bruce Willis unconvincing as the dissolute journalist), which drags the acting category down considerably. De Palma's cinematography has its moments of visual flair — the extended tracking shot opening is technically impressive — but the film never coheres visually or tonally. As a satire of 1980s excess and racial politics, the concept had enormous novelty potential, but the execution is so compromised that it feels like a generic courtroom drama rather than something distinctive. The ending, mirroring the book's satirical epilogue, lands awkwardly and feels tacked-on rather than earned, failing to deliver the cathartic or ironic punch the material demanded.