Defendor (2010)

Waste of time

Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I am genuinely surprised this movie didn't get that much recognition. It's a really good story and I have to say it isn't your usual superhero movie. The bad reviews are due to people expecting comedy. This movie is NOT a comedy and shouldn't be judged on something it clearly isn't.Defendor is a seemingly ordinary guy who believes in justice. He's dead set on finding this metaphorical "Captain Industry" who he thinks is responsible for his mother's death. He befriends a prostitute named Kat all because she lies to him and tells him she knows Captain Industry when she's well aware he doesn't exist. She wants revenge, Arthur belives her, and with the money he's giving her for this information, she can buy drugs. The beginning is Arthur explaining why he assaulted Mr. Debrofkawitz who "macked" on Kat. Her father assaulted her. He rightfully gets angry at this and busts up his dry cleaning business.The movie takes a turn when Dooney (a sleaze bag cop) uses Kat as leverage so Arthur doesn't talk about the illegal sex ring they're operating. At the end, Defendor dies, but his heroics keep him alive throughout town. He is known as the guy who wanted to clean up the city and make it a better place.This movie has charm. No fancy superpowers, no elaborate stunts, flying fights - just a normal guy with a homemade weapons and a make-up mask. It's a pretty old movie, but it's definitely a golden one.

Part of a wave of supposedly "subversive" superhero movies ("Kick-Ass", "Special", "Super", "Hancock" etc), "Defendor" stars Woody Harrelson as a mentally ill man who constructs a superhero identity in the hopes of defeating "Captain Industry", a villain whom he holds responsible for all the crime in his city.The film is weak in places, but writer/director Peter Stebbings stuffs his script with two good ideas. Late in the film we learn that our superhero is ineffectual precisely because he imagines a singular villain (Captain Industry) to be responsible for both local crimes and his mother's death. We then learn that "Captain Industry" is really "Captain's of Industry". In other words, the entire fabric of the city – its wealth, its people, the myriad of organisations that comprise it - is its own villain. A statement like this is the antithesis to most superhero movies, where cities are typically besieged by a singular super-villain. Here the civilian, the body politic, the social superstructure, is the bad guy (the film is too dumb to explore this properly, but the idea is pointed to). It's Van Rjndt's old "Hitler dilemma": is a single cell in a murderer's body also guilty? What about 2 cells? What about an entire organ? What about a system of organs? The film updates and adapts Cervantes' "Don Quixote". Don Quixote, of course, was about a guy who read heroic tales, saw that the world was messed up, and so went out to slay its dragons. In "Defendor", Woody's character embraces the moral absolutism of Don Quixote, and like Cervantes' hero, is a bit delusional. The implication is twofold: only the mentally ill are allowed license to believe in justice – everyone else passively accepts – and it sometimes take the mad to point out the irrational.The film is well acted by Harrelson, avoids sappiness and contains some good one-liners, but Stebbings' direction is weak, his script thin and the film predictable in parts.7.5/10 - Probably more transgressive than supposedly "shocking" superhero movies like "Kick-Ass" and "Super". Worth one viewing.

Woody Harrelson is hilarious as Defendor, a dim witted, crime fighting super hero. After showing a serious side in The Messenger, the actor proves his amazing versatility in this one. A psychiatrist, Dr. Park(sexy Sandra Oh), interviews Arthur(Harrelson) who explains the reason for his arrest for assault began with a corrupt cop named Dooney, who smokes crack and patronizing hookers. Art believes that the officer works for his enemy, Captain Industry. He lives alone, and one day he meets Angel, the hooker who was previously with Dooney. He is badly beaten by friends of the cop and Angel plays Florence Nightingale. She stays with him for a while at a building depot. Defendor gets shot by Dooney's men, and survives after surgery. He learns that Angel was abused by her father and when he tracks him down, he beats him up, which explains his arrest. Dr. Park sympathizes with him. He makes the news and tries to rehabilitate Angel, while fighting corruption. Defendor is worth it for Woody Harrelson's presence alone.

Like many a comedic deconstruction of the superhero mythos -- most recently "Kick-Ass" -- Defendor is built around the premise of a completely ordinary person donning the tights.It's a very different film from the more light-hearted "Kick-Ass," though. Woody Harrelson's character -- a disturbed, developmentally-delayed construction worker named Arthur Poppington by day -- is pretty extreme as deconstructions of superheroes go. He's not just starry-eyed and inept like Kick-Ass, and he's not just crazy and messed up like Rorschach from The Watchmen. He's both, and none-too-bright to boot; if anything he's an anti-superhero, an incarnation of folly with a letter "D" duct-taped to his chest.The character could have been merely a caricature in lesser hands, but the strength of the film is that despite all this, Harrelson finds psychological truth and a good and sympathetic core in Defendor, making us care about what happens to him. Defendor isn't just a twerp kid in a wetsuit; he's an ostracized and genuinely suffering soul who finds hidden depths in himself with the aid of his alter-ego. He's helped in this by a capable supporting cast, including strong turns by Sandra Oh as his psychologist and Kat Dennings as a young hooker-in-distress who befriends him (a depressingly Frank Miller-esque trope, but at least the plot ultimately takes her character arc somewhere else).The movie has its share of slapstick comedy -- Defendor's pathetic superhero arsenal, including marbles and jars of angry wasps, is reminiscent of an older version of the kid from Home Alone -- but it allows for very little in the way of retreat into cartoon reality. A guy with some marbles and a billy club who dresses up in costume and takes on thugs with guns is destined for only one fate, and Defendor doesn't flinch from that; nevertheless, it allows its hero his fair measure of redemption, and "super" though he may not be, he winds up a genuine hero nevertheless.