![]() Written and directed by Joel Schumacher director of photography, Declan Quinn edited by Mark Stevens music by Bruce Roberts production designer, Jan Roelfs produced by Schumacher and Jane Rosenthal released by MGM. Rating: "Flawless" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It's probably the only way an actor could have approached a role that feels like a hollow construction crammed with the filmmaker's Hoffman brings an angry heat to a stunt role that is even flashier than his turns in "Boogie Nights" and "Happiness." Unlike De Niro, he makes youĪware every second that he is giving a carefully shaped, larger-than-life performance. The actor makes you feel the humiliation and terror of a proudly independent man who suddenly must relearn how to speak whileįacing the possibility of having no sexual future. The one he has admired as a lady turns out to be a mercenary who dumps him when he is disabled and strappedįor cash, while the one he has dismissed as a whore turns out to have a heart of gold.ĭe Niro brings a deep, brooding quiet to his role that makes Walt more than a stick-figure bigot. ![]() Meanwhile Walt learns some lessons about romance and finance from two women he knows from the local tango palace. When Rusty gets angry at Walt, she hits him with that now-standard refrain, "I'm more man than you'll ever be and more woman than you'll Man who abuses her but expects her to pay his gambling debts. ![]() "There's no romance without finance," Rusty remarks, when explaining her relationship with a macho married They are about as real as Broadway's "Cats."ĭesperate for sharp one-liners, the screenplay recycles cliches, then tries to palm them off as fresh. Revving up for a never-ending Halloween drag ball. Her noisy posse of friends look and act like shallow, preening gargoyles Rusty is hysterical, masochistic, voracious, self-loathing and ragingly "on" every minute of her waking day. But its caricatures of the transvestized and the transgendered (Rusty, who is saving money to have a sex-change operation fits both definitions) reinforces every negative stereotypeĪscribed to gay men in drag. By the end of the movie, the once rabidly homophobic policeman has clearly melted They are lessons in courage and compassion proffered by an oppressed but indomitable spirit who knows the meaning of suffering and rejection. Those lessons turn out to be much more than vocal exercises (one assignment is to learn to sing the tongue-twisting Is Rusty, his drag- queen neighbor who ends up giving Walt speech therapy in the form of singing lessons. Robert De Niro is Walt Koontz, a retired New York policeman who falls into a depression after he is disabled by a stroke suffered while trying to foil a robbery in an upstairs neighbor's apartment. Set on Manhattan's Lower East Side and fluffed out with foolish subplots involving stolen drug money and a drag queen beauty contest, the movie is essentially a comic duet for two gifted actors putting the best possibleįaces on roles that are little more than one-dimensional mouthpieces. Robert DeNiro, right, as a disabled police officer, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, a drag queen, in "Flawless." If so, that would be an unintended benefit. With men in drag as symbols of its own supposedly liberated sexual attitudes. Oel Schumacher's garish, message-laden comedy, "Flawless," is so awful it just might put an end to Hollywood's hypocritical infatuation Selected Scenes and Trailer From the Film 'Flawless'. ![]() The New York Times on the Web: Current Film.'Flawless': Drag Queen Rescues a Disabled CopįILM REVIEW 'Flawless': Drag Queen Rescues a Disabled Cop ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |