Flawless

TNT RoughCut Joel Schumacher

It's clear that Schumacher has risen from the self-imposed dreck of "Batman & Robin" and has returned to Hollywood to tell a good story.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

It says a lot for Joel Schumacher's Flawless that you can see the picture's high-concept heart a mile away and still be won over by it.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

A smartly crafted throwback to the gritty Manhattan crime melodramas of the '40s .

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

More fable than slice of life, and all these people and props give Robert De Niro and Philip Seymour Hoffman their opening to create two screwy characters from opposite ends of the great personality divide

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Contrived and overly schematic, but De Niro and Hoffman are such good actors that it never slips into pat sentiment.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

One of the season's biggest delights.

Austin Chronicle Sarah Hepola

Not content to whisper its truths; it would rather flaunt its valuable lessons and its good intentions, proudly boasting its sentiments like a (rainbow-striped) badge of honor.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

Perhaps most depressingly, in pulling out all the stops for an ugly, violent climax, he (Schumacher) cheapens this vividly drawn slice of life, turning it into a tiresomely flawed, garden-variety vigilante thriller.

USA Today Mike Clark

Worth stumbling into on cable not all that far into next year.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

This 'heartwarming' thriller refuses to distinguish realism from stylization, and much of the plot is a twisted mess of repetition and unpersuasive motivation.

TV Guide Ken Fox

This surprisingly grim comedy-drama is about as good as director Joel Schumacher gets.

Film.com Peter Brunette

If you want to see an object lesson in how brilliant acting can transcend high concept, this movie's for you.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

Flawless this Joel Schumacher film is not, but it plays so well that scarcely matters.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It finally just rings false as a human drama.

LA Weekly Ernest Hardy

An appallingly crude film, with dialogue lifted off bumper stickers, characters stitched together from shorthand clichés (the brassy black drag queen; the fiery little Latin number) and a plot that's on cruise control from the opening credits.

Film.com Elizabeth Weitzman

A small-scale mess.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

At its best when it simply lets Hoffman and De Niro play off each other .

Washington Post Rita Kempley

A coy seriocomedy distantly related to--but missing the sting of--"Kiss of the Spider Woman."

Variety Emanuel Levy

Schumacher takes a step in the right direction with Flawless, a small-scale, intimate serio-comedy.

Film.com John Hartl

Crass and depressing drama.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

De Niro gives a technically brilliant performance as Walt, struggling with a body that will no longer obey him.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

It's obvious and stereotypical. It's leaden and unconvincing. It's not nearly as outrageous as it thinks it is.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

So awful it just might put an end to Hollywood's hypocritical infatuation with men in drag as symbols of its own supposedly liberated sexual attitudes.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

Flawless never approaches the rancid bluster of "8MM," but it's an equally dishonest piece of manipulative hackwork.

Slate Eliza Truitt

Corny, predictable, and packed with gay stereotypes.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

You need a pair of huge, hairy ones to make a picture this bad and call it Flawless.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Save your breath, and your money.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

A long, slow pity party full of characters who constantly bemoan their fate while telling other people not to pity themselves.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Hoffman's turn as the drag queen has its endearing and comically catty moments, but Flawless' utter phoniness subsumes all efforts at honest acting.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

In making a movie that preaches love for odd ducks, Schumacher has turned Flawless into the oddest duck of all.

Portland Oregonian Diana Abu-Jaber

While this film has got a good head on its shoulders and a nicely made-up face, flawless it's not.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

This noisy, disorganized story is riddled with clichés, stereotypes, and self-indulgence from beginning to end.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

Flawless is what happens when a filmmaker has no sense of naturalism, no sense of realism and no real natural sense.