(Credits: Far Out / TCM)
If you were to list the ‘nicest’ Hollywood celebrities, if such a thing exists at all, there would be no doubt that Tom Hanks would occupy one of the top spots alongside the likes of Bill Murray, Paul Rudd and Rebecca Ferguson.
Such has come as a result of his real-life acts of kindness, like his fondness for crashing strangers’ weddings, but his filmography of beloved movies where he plays lovable characters certainly helps, too.
It is, of course, a prerequisite for an actor to be able to adapt and play different roles. In fact, it is the mark of a truly great actor that the person behind the portrayal can be lost in the image of the role. But, Hanks can attest to the power of an audience instantly connecting the personalities of the actor and the role they are playing. It makes the movie a far more harmonious experience far quicker.
Indeed, thanks to such fan-favourite movies as Forrest Gump, Big and Cast Away, Hanks has become associated with a certain degree of sentimentality, where putting on a film from the American screen icon is to receive a warm hug from the cinema. It doesn’t even seem to matter if his films are even live-action either, with Toy Story 3 famously bringing one of cinema’s saddest moments.
Even some of his more hard-hitting roles, such as Road to Perdition, Philadelphia and The Green Mile, are tearjerkers, with his natural sincerity hard not to buy into. Despite his honesty and general goodwill, though, Hanks is no fool. He’s highly self-critical, and the actor hates one of his movies so much that he states that he’s only made four great movies while not even going so far as to treat fans by revealing which films he is talking about.
Tom Hanks in 1984’s Splash. (Credits: Far Out / Buena Vista Distribution)
For the most part, Hanks has a career that actors would envy. But to assume that it means his resume sparkles like the toilet bowl of a bleach commercial is to be mistaken. There is one film that he has regularly called out, calling it the “crappiest” of all his cinematic contributions.
The unfortunate recipient of Hanks’ rare venom is Brian De Palma’s 1990 flop The Bonfire of the Vanities, a film that, during its production, was predicted to be a sure-fire hit. Adapted from Tom Wolfe’s hit 1987 novel of the same name, the black comedy stars Hanks as Sherman McCoy, an unscrupulous Wall Street banker who assists his mistress in covering up the death of a Black teenager in the Bronx, whom she accidentally hits with her car.
With a supporting cast that included the likes of Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Kim Cattrall and Morgan Freeman, and with De Palma’s expertise behind the camera, it’s baffling that this movie was the disaster that it was, raking in just $15million at the box office in comparison to its $47million budget. Panned by film fans and critics alike for being a poor imitation of the beloved book, the movie has since been deemed a blight on the filmographies of everyone who worked on the flick.
“It’s one of the crappiest movies ever made,” Hanks told The Oprah Magazine in September 2001. Hanks also said that as time passed, he realised that he couldn’t relate to Sherman, and “bullshitting his way through” was impossible.
However, The Bonfire of the Vanities taught Hanks valuable lessons about his craft, explaining, “If I hadn’t gone through that experience, I would have lost out on something valuable…That movie was a fascinating enterprise from the word go. It was bigger than life, and for some reason, it had a huge amount of attention on it”.
The increased eyeballs on the production meant that the movie would always have to contend with higher expectations. Sometimes, that can work in your favour, but on this occasion, it clearly failed to match the demand people had on a movie so heavily littered with genuine movie stars.
Take a look at the trailer for The Bonfire of the Vanities below, and judge for yourself whether it is, indeed, one of his worst movies.
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‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source faroutmagazine.co.uk ’
