Defendor

Defendor

Drama (Comedy)

2010

Rated: R

Running Time: 95 minutes

Starring: Woody Harrelson, Kat Dennings, Elias Koteas, Sandra Oh, Michael Kelly

Directed By: Peter Stebbings

Rating: 2 out of 10

Outline

An everyday superhero named Defendor battles crime as he looks for his nemesis Captain Industry.

Review

This movies tagline should read Batman with Autism. If that doesn’t appeal to you as a movie idea you can stop reading this review right now as this movie is as bad as the tagline sounds. Even after sitting down and really dissecting this movie I am still not sure what I just watched. The easiest way I can describe this movie is to oversimplify movie genres. Picture movies as a triangle with the three points represented by the action, comedy, and drama genres respectively. Defendor would fall in the dead center of the triangle. I guess it could be called an Actdramedy but whatever you want to call it, good is certainly not on the list. The film starts off as sort of a comedy with the character Defendor played well by Woody Harrelson. He is breaking up crime with a motley assortment of household items. A wooden bat, marbles, even a jar of wasps come into play as Defendor painfully tries to rid the streets of scum. Now I say sort of a comedy because while it won’t make you laugh it just had that vibe. You quickly realize that the character Defendor is not all there mentally. With that realization the film breaks down into a depressing drama of a sad broken man fighting crime because of mental instability. To make matters even more complicated he befriends a street walker named Katerina played quite well by Kat Dennings. The two of them form this dark bond of drawn out reliance that really is painful to watch. Trying to figure out where this film is going is akin to pulling out your own teeth with pliers it is that bad. The action scenes are pitiful as one would expect with an everyday superhero taking on everyone from the mob to corrupt undercover cops. I literally watched the entire movie with a blank expression on my face and I don’t think I blinked once as this film was so uninspiring. Director and Writer Peter Stebbings runs everything at the viewer from flashbacks of Defendor when he is a kid, to tedious scenes of a doctor played by Sandra Oh, gauging Defendor’s mental capacity. To make a long story short all of the story development just turned this movie in to one unwatchable mess. I am taking a stab in the dark that this was supposed to be a black comedy but it failed to capture that theme. Stebbings would have been better served to make this into a straight comedy/action and forget all the dramatic nonsense that no one will care about. I cannot recommend this movie as although the acting was decent all I can say is Defendontwatch it.

T Factor + If you like quirky films then this could score higher on the rating scale.

T Factor – If you are looking for comedic value from a film of this nature this could score lower on the rating scale.

If you liked this film reel recommendations: Mystery Men, Kick Ass