# Flawless (1999)

### reviewed by
James Sanford

Somewhere in the messy, laughably titled "Flawless" is a potentially fine character study about prejudice and the price we pay for sex. But Joel Schumacher's script (which he also directed) is a rhinestone in the rough, a piece of junk jewelry even Robert DeNiro and Philip Seymour Hoffman can't make sparkle.

Heaven knows they try, though. As Rusty, a drag queen who badly wants to be surgically transformed into "a real woman," Hoffman huffs and puffs and sometimes blows everyone else off the screen, as if he's certain he can somehow turn this shabby stick figure of a character into Mama Cass. DeNiro can't even hope to compete. He's playing Walter, a stroke victim with partially paralyzed vocal cords who seeks out loud-mouth Rusty for therapeutic singing lessons. Since Walter is a hard-boiled homophobe, of course the match-up is a disaster waiting to happen.

To further complicate matters, Schumacher has tossed in some of Walter's macho cop buddies, a cold-hearted "dancer" with eyes for Walter's wallet, a beautiful love-starved mouse (Daphne Rubin-Vega) and a passel of aggressively outrageous friends of Rusty's, most of whom spend their days shrieking out old Sylvester anthems and smacking their heavily glossed lips over the sight of the stud who works in the neighborhood pizza parlor.

All these mini-dramas prove to be irritating distractions, like gnats buzzing around your ears. But even that's not enough -- as a screenwriter, Schumacher can't say 'no' -- so every 15 minutes or so "Flawless" cuts away from the stormy Rusty/Walter relationship to a completely incongruous subplot about stolen drug money and murdered hookers.

But don't put your feet up yet: You've still got to sort through episodes showing masochistic Rusty being battered by a cruel boyfriend, scattered jabs at gay Republicans and running jokes involving elderly ladies who can't comprehend why some men like to wear thigh-high boots and boas. No wonder the story's message ultimately gets twisted along the way and inadvertently links being gay with having a physical disability. Good luck selling that theory to the local chapter of ACT-UP, Mr. Schumacher.

The movie would be a thorough waste of time were it not for a handful of DeNiro and Hoffman's scenes together in which the actors cut through Schumacher's silly yarn and try to simply let Walter and Rusty communicate as human beings, rather than as archetypes. Those moments far outclass everything else in the film, and it's conceivable "Flawless" could make an intriguing one-act play if Schumacher bothered to strip away all the ridiculous frills covering up his central theme. In the world of drag, fussiness can be an asset; in screenwriting, it's a major liability. James Sanford

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