Review of Flawless (2007) by Jason H — 12 Mar 2010

Shortcuts. They're never a good thing in dramas, especially when you have a character-driven story that relies on the gradual change of seemingly inflexible people. Flawless takes far too many shortcuts in its depiction of Walt (Robert DeNiro) and Rusty (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), two adversarial neighbors who find themselves in similar positions of loneliness.

Walt is an old-fashioned ex-police officer while Rusty is a transgendered emcee at the local drag bar, so it comes as no surprise when the two don't get along. Things change when Walt suffers a stroke and needs Rusty to give him singing lessons as a means of physical therapy. The film is commendable in that they don't become overly buddy-buddy, although we are supposed to accept the progression of their relationship without the scenes to justify it. Walt never seems desperate enough and Rusty never seems broke enough to make their arrangement plausible; prejudices are shed when convenient but reestablished when the plot requires it. The two develop more of a co-dependency than a friendship, each one relying on the other to be who he is. They donâ??t need a shoulder to cry on as much as a stable element to count on.

Walt's deterioration is somewhat taken for granted, with only one scene (albeit, a good one) that cuts deep to show the frustrations caused by his handicap. Robert DeNiro mumbles his way through a performance that doesn't give us much besides the physicality of a stroke victim, but Phillip Seymour Hoffman makes the most of Rusty, crafting the character with a dignity that might have escaped lesser actors. Rusty is a character ripe for parody so Hoffman's restraint is necessary to take the story seriously. One can't help but think that Hoffmanâ??s Rusty deserves to be in a different, better movie.

A subplot involving a gangster's missing money doesn't fit at all, constantly interrupting what few good scenes exist and tying things up in a horrendous shootout ending. It's as though the filmmakers didn't think the drama between the protagonists would captivate enough so they threw in some violence for good measure. Perhaps cinema needs a rule stating that a movie can have guns or drag queens, but not both. Iâ??m sure that would cause many sleepless night for studio executives.