Drag Doesn’t Hide Flaws of ‘Wong Foo’

If, as ads for “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” insisted, drag is the drug, then “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar” is the overdose.

“Wong Foo’s” drag queens on the road theme covers a great deal of the same plot territory as last year’s Oscar winner (for best costume design, of course) from Australia but to considerably less effect. Unconvincing and annoying, a miscalculation on numerous fronts, it is finally sugary enough to make the sentimental “Priscilla” play like a model of icy restraint.

What’s different about “Wong Foo,” touted by Universal as “the first mainstream Hollywood feature to deal with drag queens as drag queens,” is its willingness to dress recognizable stars in full drag. Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo appear as Noxeema Jackson, Vida Boheme and Chi Chi Rodriguez, all of whom answer to the description of “gay men with way too much fashion sense for one gender.”

“Wong Foo” opens with the street-smart Noxeema and the prim Vida primping for a mythical Manhattan event called the Drag Queen of the Year pageant. Good pals, they are happy to be declared the contest’s co-winners and recipients of a pair of round-trip airplane tickets to Hollywood.

Not so happy is poor Chi Chi, who barely has enough fashion sense for a single gender and is found by the two winners whining on a convenient staircase. In a fit of noblesse oblige, they take on the waif, initially referred to as “Little One,” as a reclamation project.

They even decide to take Chi Chi to California with them, which means plane trips are out and the purchase of a barge-like 1967 Cadillac convertible is in. Using a pilfered photo of Julie Newmar autographed to the owner of a Chinese restaurant as a good luck charm, they gaudily hit the road. As one pal (Robin Williams, in an uncredited cameo) puts it, “how ‘Three Sisters,’ how Chekov.”

Up to this point, “Wong Foo” is at least sporadically amusing. And while the lure of seeing macho types in drag may not be on a par with “Garbo Laughs” as an audience draw, the three actors have thrown themselves into the roles (and the clothes) without reservation. There is no opportunity for the kind of memorable performance Terence Stamp gave in “Priscilla,” but, actors to the end, they are not shy about posing and preening.

Once the Cadillac gets out to Middle America, however, things get worse all around. The trio’s flamboyance draws the lewd attentions of a crude county sheriff named Dollard (Chris Penn), who gets knocked out for his trouble and spends the rest of the picture in a tedious attempt to exact revenge.

And when that enormous Cadillac suffers the inevitable breakdown, the girls end up stranded in the hamlet of Snydersville, whose doltish inhabitants could be in a road show version of “Night of the Living Dead.” All the women are lonely and depressed, none worse than Carol Ann (Stockard Channing), a victim of periodic beatings from sadistic husband Virgil (Arliss Howard). And most of the men are either brutes or fools or both.

Though they may totter on their heels, Noxy, Vida and Chi Chi know a thing or two about human nature, and, in the most trite way, they manage to solve everyone’s problems, even their own, before the Cadillac rolls out of town. It’s even more unconvincing than it sounds.

Screenwriter Douglas Carter Beane and director Beeban Kidron (who has wandered far from her witty “Antonia and Jane”) don’t seem to know any way to emphasize the humanity of their characters except by swaddling them in mushy cliches. The only real use “Wong Foo” has for drag is to disguise its banality, and those who remember not only “Priscilla” but the exceptional “Paris Is Burning” know what a waste that is.

* MPAA rating: PG-13, for subject matter including men living in drag, a brief scene of spousal abuse, and some language. Times guidelines: a gritty wife-beating subplot and lighthearted treatment of sexual confusion.

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‘To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar’

Wesley Snipes: Noxeema

Patrick Swayze: Vida

John Leguizamo: Chi Chi

Stockard Channing: Carol Ann

Blythe Danner: Beatrice

Arliss Howard: Virgil

Jason London: Bobby Ray

Chris Penn: Sheriff Dollard

An Amblin Entertainment production, released by Universal Pictures. Director Beeban Kidron. Producer G. Mac Brown. Executive producer Bruce Cohen. Screenplay Douglas Carter Beane. Cinematographer Steve Mason. Editor Andrew Mondshein. Costumes Marlene Stewart. Music Rachel Portman. Production design Wynn Thomas. Art director Robert Guerra. Set decorator Ted Glass. Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.