“Flawless” isn’t flawless (what movie is, besides “The Big Lebowski”?) and it really doesn’t have a lot to do with the titular drag-queen contest, not even thematically, or not enough to draw an unforced comparison anyway.

The reason you want to see it is something you would, in an ideal world, find out about by surprise, but I also want droves of people to run out and rent “Flawless,” so here’s five words: Philip. Seymour. Hoffman. In. Drag. There’s no way to gush properly about this movie without that. And without it, it would probably sound like a Tim Allen summer buddy comedy, with a full quota of fart jokes, explosions, cute animals and scrumptious 20-something it-girls with fake boobs and real eating disorders hitting on polo shirted panzónes like, well, Tim Allen.

Amazingly, the intense, hilarious tango of “Flawless” was directed by Joel Schumacher. My theory is that it was an act of penance for his two-part rave hangover he inflicted on the Batman franchise. Schumacher has, post-Dark Knight, proved he can direct a movie that doesn’t rely on camp alone.

Robert DeNiro is Wally Koontz, gruff veteran cop who once saved 14 people from a burning slum without mussing his Grecian Formula-ed pompadour. Over the years, his East Village apartment building has become infiltrated by aging transvestites who still haven’t mastered three-part harmony on “Lady Marmalade.” Judging by how much this bothers him, one assumes Koontz’s was still living in Bay Ridge up until Giuliani cleaned up the place (and I say “cleaned up” with the appropriate loathing, mind you).

Regardless, after a stroke, Koontz is referred to Hoffman’s (Busty Rusty’s) green-glittered palace of feathers, headbands and muumuus for speech therapy. It’s either that or keep finding Depression glass bottles to smash open those horrible orange child-proof pill bottles on the side of his porcelain sink, and that’ll cost ya.

Oh, and the stroke is partially prompted by a cat burglar Hoffman is sympathetic towards, and subsequently, the thugs out to find their suspect try to beat it out of our mighty almost-female lead. In their quest to find hidden piles of cash, they slice open a pitiful plastic bag of a fellow drag queen’s ashes. Hoffman bellows at the gangsters to get out. Rusty’s not about to call for the smelling salts. He learned how to seize control of life’s stage as a student of P.S. 11 in Paramus, N.J., when he picked up the Snow Queen’s cardboard crown at a school play and found his kingdom.

Those seeming decades of victory-as-struggle are half of what makes “Flawless” work. The spectacular Hoffman should have won an Oscar for his RuPaul’s Drag Race-worthy portrayal of a steely-as-Spanx transsexual, does one of his best duets as he and DeNiro shout slurs at each other: “Fascist!” “Girly man!” “Republican!”

The other half is DeNiro, blessedly years before the insipid Fockers franchise, who seems so genuinely aggrieved by spending any time with anyone he’d have busted years ago on the vice squad (How would you feel if you were a Prohibition agent after the 21st Amendment repealed it?). It’s not that he’s against their lifestyles, but spending years enforcing misguided laws will do that for you.

Without seeming forced, faked, or focus-grouped, the two end up, while not best friends, two men with an understanding. As Hoffman says, looking over DeNiro’s just-short-of-heroic awards, “You got a rough break. Who didn’t?”

Good point. And all the more reason to wear the badge, the green glitter, the duty revolver or the feather boa - with pride.

Ashley O’Dell writes about movies that aren’t in theaters anymore.