December 10, 1999


Links

Inconsistent acting, stereotyping doom 'Flawless'

By Morghan Holt | Phoenix Staff

Handing my ticket to the scruffy-haired Marple employee, I enter the corridor, passing posters advertising future films and cardboard figurine hype for those playing. I count the lighted signs above me: two, three, four. At the end of the hall, I've got only one screen to go. I finally spot the sign for Joel Schumacher's latest flick, "Flawless," stashed in the furthermost corner of the theater. I survey the audience and have no difficulty finding a good seat. Sitting, I silently attribute the abundance of vacant seats to my early arrival. The screen lights up and the previews begin. I glance around me again and find I still have ample elbow room, and start doubting that "Flawless" will sell out.

I was right. Even after the movie began my row was empty ... so was the one behind me, and the one in front. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the entire audience numbered twelve unfortunate souls with no better way to spend their Friday nights.

I wouldn't call "Flawless" bad, necessarily. It had its glimmers of brilliance, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman tore it up in his melodramatic drag queen role. The plot, however, left something to be desired and the complimentary characters were a waste of screen time. When I read the online synopsis of this movie, I presumed it a tacky comedy that would play on the stereotypes of a close-minded world. Slices of the script were exactly this. Overall, though, the movie casually acknowledged established stereotypes and dismissed them, squelching them with unconventionall, yet surprisingly natural main characters.

From the very beginning, Busty Rusty, Hoffman's transvestite lounge singer, and Walter Koontz, an ex-security guard and hero played amazingly inconsistently by Robert DeNiro, hated each other. Each was ill at the thought of the other's lifestyle and despised the other's existence. Undoubtedly, the two would never have met, much less interacted, had they not shared the same alley. After a raucous handball game, DeNiro returns to his apartment dripping with testosterone and prepares for a night of reckless abandon in the arms of a tango-dancing hooker, whose payment he prefers to call "help with the rent." While dressing, he hears through the open window the effeminate giggles and squeals of Rusty and his friends as they rehearse for the night's show.

Infuriated by this behavior, Walter impulsively sticks his head out the window and hollers, "Shut up, you fucking fags!" and other equally intelligent things. As expected, Rusty and his fellow performers reciprocate. These screaming matches, the audience learns, occur at frequent intervals and foster an increasingly hostile relationship.

In the meantime, their inevitable connection is set up: Awakened in the wee hours of the morning by hallway pandemonium, DeNiro's hero instinct is sparked by the shrieks of the show's damsel in distress. Rushing to her rescue, Walter only makes it to the stairs when, gun in hand, he suddenly collapses, the victim of a debilitating, unforeseen stroke. The macho playboy now depends on a cane to walk, slurs his words through an uncontrollably drooping mouth, and sits depressed in a corner of his house, safely hidden from the eyes of the outside world.

In an attempt to boost Koontz back into the mainstream of life, his physical therapist suggests that he take singing lessons, which will supposedly improve the clarity of his speech. And Walter requisitions Rusty. Dependent upon his singing skills and close locale, the rough and tough, cursing, spitting, meat and potatoes man sits humbled in a brightly upholstered plush chair amidst curvaceous mannequins displaying Rusty's sequined gowns. The two sing, fight and eventually come to terms.

By the end of the movie, the dichotomous duo has formed an impenetrable bond and Walter has put his life on the line for the man he so hated. The story is touching in an anomalous sort of way. But the inconsistencies in DeNiro's acting (this was definitely NOT one of his better portrayals - he spent half the movie appearing to be choking on a wad of chew and blandly playing his role and the other half shouting enthusiastic obscenities in Seymour's face) and the absence development and originality in the film's extraneous characters, I think it's pretty safe to say that this one won't be scoring any big awards. What redeemed "Flawless" in my eyes, I think, was Busty Rusty, an intriguing emotional wreck with a keen insight and a persona that redefines what it is to be a man.