Breakfast of Champions (1999)

Director:

Alan Rudolph

Writers (WGA):

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (book)
Alan Rudolph (screenplay)

Release Date:

18 February 1999 (Germany)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

In a world gone mad, you can trust Dwayne Hoover.

Plot:

A portrait of a fictional town in the mid west that is home to a group of idiosyncratic and slightly neurotic characters...

Plot Keywords:

Lounge Singer | Writing | Commercial | Surrealism | Nervous Breakdown

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Bruce Willis	...	Dwayne Hoover
Albert Finney	...	Kilgore Trout
Nick Nolte	...	Harry Le Sabre
Barbara Hershey	...	Celia Hoover
Glenne Headly	...	Francine Pefko
Lukas Haas	...	George 'Bunny' Hoover
Omar Epps	...	Wayne Hoobler
Vicki Lewis	...	Grace Le Sabre
Buck Henry	...	Fred T. Barry
Ken Hudson Campbell	...	Eliot Rosewater / Gilbert (as Ken Campbell)
Jake Johannsen	...	Bill Bailey
Will Patton	...	Moe the Truck Driver
Chip Zien	...	Andy Wojeckowzski
Owen Wilson	...	Monte Rapid
Alison Eastwood	...	Maria Maritimo

MPAA:

Rated R for sexuality and some language.

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:L | Finland:S | Australia:M | South Korea:18 | Philippines:PG-13 | Argentina:18 | Chile:18 | France:U | Germany:12 | Italy:T | Portugal:M/16 (video premiere) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Twin Falls, Idaho, USA

Company:

Flying Heart Films

Trivia:

After the success of Robert Altman's Nashville (1975), Vonnegut's novel was bought by producer Dino De Laurentiis for Altman. Altman's cast for the film included Peter Falk as Hoover, Alice Cooper as his son Bunny, Sterling Hayden as Kilgore Trout and Ruth Gordon as Eliot Rosewater (as Rosewater was to be portrayed as an old man, Altman thought it didn't matter that Gordon was a woman as he believed gender differences were not as strong in the elderly. After the De Laurentiis-produced Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976) flopped, the project went into turnaround.

Quotes:

Dwayne Hoover: It's all life until your dead.

Movie Connections:

Follows Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

Soundtrack:

Oro, God of Vengeance

A disappointed fan of the book

After a recent Vonnegut reading binge I was eager to see Breakfast of Champions when I saw it on the video shelf. A great cast, a director (Aland Rudolph) who has made several films I've enjoyed (Choose Me, The Moderns, Trouble in Mind). Sadly, BofC is quite a disappointment.

Two things really stick out for me. Although Bruce Willis was quite good as Dwayne Hoover, too many of the other characters, notably Harry LeSabre (Nick Nolte) and Wayne Hoobler (Omar Epps) are portrayed in frenetic over the top performances. OK...we get it that there are all sorts of crazies running amuck in Midland City, but the point Vonnegut was making in his novel was that this madness is displayed in the "normal" everyday way that we live our lives in America. The values (consumerism, greed, violence) and actions that are considered normal in the United States are themselves proof that we are all suffering from a form of madness...showing these fine actors jumping around and uttering indecipherable gibberish shows only that they are annoying.

The film also has a problem in creating a consistent point of view. In the novel the author guides us through Dwayne Hoovers' unfolding madness and is actually a character in the book. The movie can't give us the background information the books' narrator did and I would guess that anyone who hasn't read the book will find the movie tough going...perhaps downright incomprehensible.

Lastly, as a great fan of Kilgore Trout (Vonnegut fans know him as a character who pops up in several Vonnegut novels) I thought Albert Finney did quite a nice job; he had just the right air of unkempt, curmudgeonly, insane genius that makes Trout my favorite Vonnegut character of all time. Still, it's hardly enough to save this mess...I admire the effort in bringing Breakfast of Champions to the screen, but in the end it's likely that this is an unfilmable novel.