FLAWLESS

A retired security guard gets more than he bargained in the new movie FLAWLESS starring Robert DeNiro and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

DeNiro plays Walt Koontz, a security guard who lives in rundown apartment in New York City. Walt has heated arguments with Rusty, a chubby drag queen who lives upstairs. Rusty, played by Hoffman, is often rehearsing with several of his homosexual buddies, who perform at a local nightclub. Walt is constantly yelling at them to shut up, and they yell back at him.

Late one night, while trying to help a neighbor whose boyfriend has stolen some money from the local gangster, Walt suffers a stroke. The stroke leaves him partially paralyzed. Refusing to leave his apartment for therapy, Walt gets some physical therapy at home. His doctor also advises him to take singing lessons in order to improve his speech. When he loses the card to the instructor she recommended, who lives cross town anyway, Walt asks Rusty to give him the lessons. Their volatile relationship takes a turn toward mutual respect. Meanwhile, the gangster continues to look for his money, which is now missing. A final confrontation leads to a new revelation for Walt and Rusty about what it takes to be a real man.

The politically correct conceit in FLAWLESS is that people should embrace homosexual behavior. This is belied, however, by the movie’s own story, which shows that homosexuality is a bizarre masquerade of confused sexuality resulting from neurotic family relationships. Despite this, the movie tries hard to show that Rusty the drag queen has an inner strength and courage to match Walt the security guard’s. This is the moral of the story, which, to put it in simpler terms, is the venerable adage, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”

FLAWLESS is a small, well-made diversion, mostly because of the performances of the two lead actors. Regrettably, however, it not only has a pro-homosexual worldview, it also has lots of very strong foul language. The obscenities are almost nonstop, another fact which belies the movie’s central conceit about its politically correct view of sexual tolerance. If this kind of tolerance is so valid, then what’s with all the foul language and crude sexual references? Why would any intelligent person want to emulate such vulgarity?