If you read most critics, you get a mess; an incoherent concoction, neither action nor personal drama, that takes advantage of transgender and gay stereotypes and adds mindless violence that detracts from the human elements of the story.

Hmm. This kind of reviewing that totally misses the meaning and heart of a movie is why we were drawn to reviewing. Everyone has tastes. We don’t like some movies and some genres per se. That’s part of living and enjoying art, but that does not mean that we should ever give up trying to sample the goodness that is indeed part of a movie. It is the height of hubris and folly to judge something that is not yet understood as so many reviewers do. We may ere in our judgment and we may not always match your tastes as our friends and readers, but we never give up on our quest to get it first, then heap on abuse if called for.

Let’s get back to Flawless (can’t you tell that was Craig perorating). The film focuses on two men from opposite worlds who battle verbally like bulls in a china shop. They pull out all of the stops from each camp regarding their sexual choices. Rusty, as gay as one gets, fires back with almost sweet venom when, in moments of hilariously difficult passion, Koontz slurs out "fucking faggot" in his speech impaired mush mouth. We couldn’t help but love both characters in their machinations and posturing.

Flawless poignantly unmasks the denied and painful reality of isolation and loneliness. Regardless of our sexual preference or deeply ingrained prejudices against those different from us, we often mask our own desperate isolation when we define ourselves as different and superior to others. If one watches the parallels in the lives of Rusty and Walt, their deeper similarities and ultimate goodness comes through. They are both touchingly vain of their appearance. They are both deluded about their lovers who take advantage of them for money. They are both stripped of their dignity by their circumstances. They both hit emotional bottom through dire loneliness.

The powerful ending in fact symbolizes how they become human and friends if not spiritual brothers. In a way, they both give up what they most treasure and desire from their insular, self-centered perspective to literally and spiritually save each other.

We suppose it is entirely possible to dislike the movie because the pressure that forces these two disparate characters to make their final transformations comes from the somewhat contrived threat from gangsters. The climactic sequence is a highly charged shoot-em-up. However, it worked for us requiring only a slight suspension of disbelief. In the metaphor of cinematic stories, this kind of pressure gives us the opportunity to see what lies beneath the surface of our own prejudices and role bound blindness without the need to personally experience the contrived life and violence found in the screen story.

With all of the seriousness of our explication, however, let us not make the movie seem too dark and dour. There are moments of hilarity and good fun. We laughed, we cowered, we wept a bit, and our conversation was leavened by this fine film. If you missed it on the big screen, make sure to catch it on video.