The Bonfire Of The Vanities (1990) **

A perplexing adaptation of Tom Wolfe's bestselling novel about a rich New Yorker involved in a nasty racial controversy. Tom Wolf's "Master of the Universe" hero should have been played by someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but director Brian DePalma has cast Tom Hanks instead, and turned everything into a wacky black comedy, seriously distorting the author's original message. Still, it's quite a startling film in its own right.