Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25071 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-06-04
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Polish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 106 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Who could possibly be the target audience for Flawless? Walter (Robert De Niro) is a homophobic policeman who suffers a stroke while responding to gunshots in his own apartment building; for speech therapy, he starts taking singing lessons from his neighbour Rusty (Philip Seymour Hoffman of Magnolia and Boogie Nights), a gay drag queen who's saving up money for a sex-change operation. However, there's another storyline that takes up at least as much time as that one, about a drug dealer and his goons trying to find money that was stolen from them, brutally beating up everyone in their path. Furthermore, the local gay community (in New York City) seems to consist entirely of drag queens and Log Cabin Republicans and one of Walter's cop buddies goggles at drag queens as if he's just arrived from the middle of Iowa. All the characters--including various prostitutes, drug dealers, a hotel clerk who's a shifty mummy's boy, as well as the aforementioned drag queens and cops--are horrific stereotypes. De Niro and Hoffman, both extremely talented actors, do all they can to overcome their cliché-studded dialogue but they never seem to be in the same movie. This is far from inspiring stuff written and directed by the wildly uneven Joel Schumacher, whose up-and-down career includes The Lost Boys, St Elmo's Fire and Falling Down as well as the horror that was Batman & Robin. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

Special Features
1.85 Wide Screen
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
DVD 9
English
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 English
Dolby Digital 5.1
Original Theatrical Trailer
English\Polish

Synopsis
Flawless is the story of Walt Koontz (Robert De Niro), a bitter, homophobic security guard who suffers a stroke that leaves him partially paralyzed. Depressed and suicidal over his slurred speech and awkward limp, he eventually breaks down and asks a neighbor for voice lessons. The neighbor, an unglamorous drag artist named Rusty (Philip Seymour Hoffman), is as uncomfortable and disgusted with Koontz's bitter demeanor as Koontz is with Rusty's lifestyle. Hoffman proves that he is one of the finest character actors currently working in films. FLAWLESS is a nice change of pace for director Joel Schumacher (BATMAN FOREVER, THE LOST BOYS).

Customer Reviews

Stunning performance by both actors
Performing as a disabled character always seems to bring out the best in actors (e.g. Pacino - Scent of a Woman). This is definitely the case in Flawless. De Niro is most notably acclaimed for his intense performances in films such as Raging Bull, Godfather II, Casino and Taxi Driver. This film brings out a whole new side to his acting, wonderfully performing a frustrated, partially paralysed retired cop with speech problems. The latter is interesting as De Niro often has roles with strong dialogue. Hoffman also puts in a stunning performance as an extremely camp drag queen, a difficult task to pull of credibly. This film is heart-warming with some funny moments. The general motif of two extremely different characters that dislike each other yet seek each other's help is an interesting idea. I feel that the plot and script is not that brilliant, but the wonderful acting talents of the two lead roles certainly makes this otherwise average film into a very good film indeed. Definitely worth a watch.

Not quite Flawless
I bought this movie as I am collecting all of the DVDs I can find with the actors Robert De Niro, Kevin Spacey and Al Pacino in them. This particular DVD for Robert De Niro.
I found this movie actually rather good, the storyline has a little thought to it and though it is no Pulp Fiction for prose it does have a number of amusing instances.
The story revolves around a bigotted ex-cop (De Niro) who has suffered a stroke whilst trying to prevent the murder of a prostitute in his apartment building. To aid his recouperation he is given singing lessons by an outwardly gay transvestite and the film then turns into a buddy movie. There are feel good moments and there are disturbing scenes when the transvestite is being attacked but as with these feel-good movies it all turns out alright, its not the best De Niro movie I've seen but it definitely is not the worst either.

A good 'Odd Couple' comedy
This is a good De Niro film to see, as it's about a paralised De Niro being taught to sing by his drag queen neighbour. The situation is intriguing in itself as the idea of an actor with the tough guy (taxi dirver/raging bull) persona being taught to sing by a drag queen is amusing. It's a nice little humourous film, has some good direction at points. The performances are very good except perhaps a few points were De Niros dialouge is restricted becasue of his parallisis. The film has some annoying steretypical swearing gangsters in it, which do annoyingly interupt a good comedy but are nessacary to add a physical threat to the two charactors. It's a good setting for a typical De Niro movie also, from the opening shots of De Niro playing hand ball with a multiracial group, in a back street area intercut with a robbery, is a typical setting for De Niro, compared to his earlier film settings. Although the film isn't quite 'flawless' in itself, it is still an amusing aswell as entertaining film with possibley one of De Niros better perfomances of the last couple of years, aswell as a good performance from the talented Phillip Seymour Hoffman.