FLAWLESS RATING: 6.5/10 --> So-so
For more reviews and movie screensavers, visit http://www.joblo.com/
Double personality. Joel Schumacher. Think FLATLINERS. Think ST-ELMO'S FIRE. Think FALLING DOWN. Now think BATMAN FOREVER, BATMAN & ROBIN & THE CLIENT. He likes to make the smaller, more meaningful pictures, but then he also enjoys making the bigger, commercial movies as well. And this one? Well, with DeNiro in tow, you'd think it was a big film. You'd be wrong. This a small, character-driven niche film, which Mr.Hyde likes to pop up and do once in a while. Just do us comic book fans a major favor, Joel. DO NOT TOUCH the fifth installment of Batman! You've done enough damage.
PLOT: A macho ex-security guard doesn't like his neighbor who is gay and a drag queen. The neighbor doesn't like him back, cause he's an obvious homophobe. One day, the macho man has a stroke, gets paralyzed to his right side, and needs speech therapy lessons, which can be administered by someone very close to him. Guess, guess! That's right, irony upon irony, the same exact drag queen that he hates, now has to give him lessons. Let the odd couple therapy begin.
CRITIQUE: Do not go to see this movie if you're looking for a good story. An eventful story it is not. Do go see this movie if you enjoy character-driven films which allow you to relate, care and understand the people in whom you are investing your time, as opposed to seeing them simply as movie actors. And this is why I kind of liked this movie. I liked its characters, especially the flawless (sorry but I had to) rendition of the over-the-top drag queen as delivered by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who covered all the basics a la THE BIRDCAGE, but also powered through the scenes featuring his own emotional battles versus the outside world. Give this man an Oscar nod, for God's sakes. He's good. He's very good! DeNiro is also good, but for some reason I felt like I'd seen him do this whole schtick before. AWAKENINGS maybe? Anyway, you still have to admire a man who need not continue to play roles of physically challenged people, but does so in order to challenge his own acting chops to a higher degree.
Knowing DeNiro though, I was laughing to myself at the beginning of the film as I thought about how many months of handball lessons he must've taken for that one-minute scene featured in this movie. You gotta love those method actors! Solid performances aside, there wasn't much more of consequence in this film. And whatever else they did have in there wasn't all that good and seemed out of place. It's unfortunate because whenever I felt as though I was just getting to know these two characters better, the film took me out of my element and through some cockamamie plot-line featuring an evil local drug lord who was chasing the money that some punkass kid had stolen from him. Of course, all this also lead to a thriller-type ending, which seemed completely out of place in this film, when a deeper emphasis on the characters, especially the drag queen's personal life, which was barely touched upon, would have been much better appreciated. As you can see, this was quite a split decision on my part. I dug the performances, especially Hoffman's standout role as the woman caught in a man's body, but didn't much care for the side-tracked story a la RANDOM HEARTS. So see it if you want to see a couple of solid actors doing their "thang", but skip it if you're looking for a good story.
Little Known Facts about this film and its stars: Many of you will also have seen another aspect of Joel Schumacher's filming career, which includes music videos that he's recorded for many artists. This list includes the music video "Kiss From A Rose" by Seal, "The End is the Beginning is the End" by The Smashing Pumpkins and "Devil Inside" from INXS. His film directorial debut began on 1981's THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WOMAN, which he followed up two years later with the Mr.T film vehicle D.C. CAB. He's also written a few screenplays including the famous 1976 film CAR WASH, and even garnered credits as a costume designer in the 70s on such pictures as Woody Allen's INTERIORS and SLEEPER. One of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman's first movie roles was in 1992's SCENT OF A WOMAN, in which he played a snotty, prep kid. Some may also remember him as the fat, sexually frustrated man from the overrated HAPPINESS. Robert DeNiro has been married twice in his lifetime and both times his better halves were African-American. The first was actress Diahnne Abbott and the second was Grace Hightower. He also had twin sons with Toukie Smith, conceived by in-vitro fecundation.
Review Date: November 24, 1999 Director: Joel Schumacher Writer: Joel Schumacher Producers: Joel Schumacher and Jane Rosenthal Actors: Robert DeNiro as Walt Koontz Philip Seymour Hoffman as Rusty Zimmerman Genre: Drama Year of Release: 1999 --------------------------------------- JoBlo's Movie Emporium http://www.joblo.com --------------------------------------- (c) 1999 Berge Garabedian
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews