Hollywood's fascination with "drag" is back in "Flawless" starring Robert DeNiro and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Two talented actors, in roles that allow them to show off their "stuff".

DeNiro is "Walt" Koontz, a retired security guard who lives in a rundown residence hotel in New York City, one floor below Hoffman's "Rusty" Zimmerman. Better known as "Busty Rusty", Hoffman is portraying a local drag queen who prefers the title of "female impressionist". The very "straight" Walt is at odds with Rusty and Rusty's friends, who are also drag queens, and busy preparing for the upcoming "Flawless" contest.

Everything is fine until a friend of Rusty's involved in a drug money rip-off uses his apartment to hide out, and a shoot-out ensues. Walt, known as a hero for a robbery he stopped years before, grabs his revolver and goes out into the hallway to intervene, when he suffers a very strong stroke. He awakens to find much of his right side functions are gone, victim of the paralysis that often follows a stroke.

After we're forced to view the obligatory suicidal ideation, the only really weak scene in the movie, Walt gives in to the pleas of his doctor and begins physical therapy. His therapist suggests that singing lessons might help Walt regain better speech abilities, and after an attempt to go to a music teacher away from the building in which he lives, Walt decides to go to his neighbor for help.

Rusty and Walt, in spite of all of their differences are truly two of a kind and there is more bonding than conflict, in spite of how it appears. Much like Denzel Washington in The Bone Collector, DeNiro is playing a man who was once a very physical man, whose ability to move about is now limited. The difference here is that DeNiro carries off the part of stroke victim very, very well, while Washington's was a bed-ridden quadripelegic. Both are exceptional, but for comparison remember that Washington had merely to move nothing but his face, while DeNiro had to portray all of the physical mannerisms of someone who has suffered a debilitating event that has damaged their nervous system.

While DeNiro is the vibrant man, trapped in a crippled body, Hoffman is convinced he is a woman, trapped by the cruelty of nature in the body of a man, and "she" intends to correct this wrong as soon as she has enough money to afford a sex change operation. That makes "her" more than willing to give singing lessons to the homophobic neighbor from downstairs, since the money will go towards the operation.

Writer/director Joel Schumacher made some very clever choices in the making of this movie. One was casting real drag queens in the supporting roles. Another was the choice of Hoffman for the part of Rusty. Hoffman, who has done strong supporting turns in a number of films (Twister, The Big Lebowski, Boogie Nights, and Patch Adams) is in the lead here and he milks it for all its worth. He delivers the kind of breakout, tour-de-force performance that will make other directors and producers sit up and take notice. He is brilliant in some moments and strong throughout. As for DeNiro, he delivers his usual high quality work, unlike the wake performance we saw earlier this year in Analyze This. Better still, Schumacher's script weaves a nice backstory about the search for the missing money owned by the neighborhood drug dealer, which sets off the arcs of Walt and Rusty quite nicely, before coming together in a very good climax to the movie.

When conversation turns to potential Oscar nominations for 1999's crop of films, this won't garner any "Best Picture" talk. But the work of Hoffman here, just might generate some of that famous "buzz". He's that good. Don't miss it.