Breakfast Of Champions

10 April 2012

A total disaster as a film of Kurt Vonnegut Jnr's now dreadfully passé satire of America's consumer society; but Alan Rudolph's film is unmissable by collectors of OTT performances by the great and (sometimes) the good.

Bruce Willis as Midland City's car-dealer king coming mentally unglued and sticking a revolver in his mouth to begin the day as he doesn't mean to go on; Nick Nolte as his cross-dressing salesman scared witless by the fear his boss will catch him in frilly red women's undies; Barbara Hershey as a near-comatose couch-potato wife with a TV monitor perpetually

in hand; Glenne Headley as a dizzy secretary wondering how the junk-food bar gets each chip the same; and Albert Finney as a raving mad writer of porn fiction who talks to his budgie until an invite brings the nutter to town for an arts festival and the distracted Willis mistakes this literary hobo for God.

These paranoid hysterics go individually, collectively and continuously into manic acceleration until the whole thing crashes: it's like American Beauty on speed and without brakes. "Why are we here?" goes the film's key line. Ask someone from another planet: don't ask me.

Breakfast Of Champions
Cert: cert12

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in