He is always best in tight engagement with his actors, and Flawless is no exception.Īnd his actors are good! The real star here is Philip Seymour Hoffman (god rest his soul), who at this point was barely a star and barely a known character actor. This is, I believe, not surprising for Schumacher.
#FLAWLESS 1999 MOVIE#
The on-the-street aspects of this movie are occasionally charming- it is in the small, intimate moments that the movie shines. There's even some interesting technical work, as Schumacher plays with shaky handheld camera movement, lending some scenes a charming visual touch of verisimilitude. Which is a shame, because there are very good performances struggling beneath the burden of the words and story.
So now, in 1999, an established director, why did he return to writing? And what had happened to his writing skills in the meantime?īecause, I'm afraid to say, the script for Flawless is an absolute disaster. Schumacher has said that he only got into writing because he wanted to be a director, and he noticed that writers often were allowed to direct. I have questions as to why, what he was thinking, how he approached the story, what it was at it's conception. I lay this particularly at his feet in regards to Flawless because he wrote it himself. It's unnecessary and tends to pop up when you've nearly forgotten it's a thing, as if Schumacher didn't think there was quite enough drama in his initial set up and so needed to sprinkle in some spice. I think the kindness and humanism with which he treats his gay and trans characters is wonderful.īut then, for some reason, there's this bizzaro crime plot to darken up the proceedings and add a tawdry tone to everything. I think Schumacher's idea of confronting a conservative, shameful bigot with the hatefulness of a world that thinks you're pathetic is decent. I think the impulse to make a movie that features gay characters who are unashamed of themselves and are not punished for existing, is a noble one. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
it's hard not to, given how deeply unsuccessful a movie it is. On that level, I don't want to be harsh on it, or mean to it. Though the final execution results in a tonally inconsistent, confusing, messy, pretty bad movie, the idea behind it is as open-hearted and decent as anything Schumacher has made to date. I don't want to because I believe this movie, Schumacher's second of 1999 (which feels awfully fast), has good intentions. I don't want to give Flawless a hard time, I really don't. Starring: Robert De Niro, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, and Daphne Rubin-Vega
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