Two Great Movies- "Flawless" and "Holiday Heart"

These 2 movies will take you by surprise. They both feature actors in lead roles you would least expect to see them play.

In "Flawless" Robert DeNiro is a former cop who lives alone and works as a security guard. He is a bitter and homophobic man. He lives in a flophouse hotel inhabited by whores, transexuals and drag queens. Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays the Drag Queen. He is also Robert DeNiros' worst nightmare. You might even say they hate one another.

Against the backdrop of a drug rip off gone bad Robert DeNiro becomes involved in an incident late one night and has a stroke. He plays the stroke victim to perfection.

Initially unaccepting of his physical state,he tries to shut out the entire world in a bath of self pity. But his needs, as well as those of Phillip Seymour Hoffman,will not allow it. Through the vehicle of singing lessons to regain his speech, DeNiros character forms a bond with Hoffman that is tempered by the fallout from both his own stroke as well as the drug rip off.

Aside from being a great action film this movie offers more. There is a relationship with a woman that also leads DeNiro to discover that love is not what it always seems to be on the surface.

This film has a great supporting cast and fantastic direction. The plot is fast and the movie has deep meaning concerning what we each owe one another as fellow human beings. Respect.


If you have never seen this movie you should. We have all seen the tough guy potrayals of Ving Rhames as a big black guy. He's great. But after a while you wonder what else can he do? "Holiday Heart" answers that question. He can act. Boy, can he act!

In this movie he plays a drag queen/transvestite named Holiday. That's right. Ving Rhames. And he does it with integrity and compassion.

The movie is also a social commentary about about how we are all interwoven. Your pain is mine. Through a set of circumstances he becomes involved in the life of a young girl who lives next door and is being raised by a crack addicted mother and a dealer father.

And that's all I will tell you about this extraordinary movie. But in the end, Holiday Heart proves himself to be more of a man than most. A very worthwhile movie.