Defendor

Defendor is not a very good movie. It is dark and weird and full of ideas, but not very well executed. It strikes me as the kind of project where everyone felt they were really saying something profound but didn’t end up saying much at all.

At the center of the story is Defendor himself, real name Arthur, a mentally handicapped young man who deludes himself into believing that, without any particularly strength, money, or special abilities, he can take on the role of a superhero. We meet Defendor before we know why he wears the mask and the more those reasons are revealed, the more discomforting the film becomes. Arthur’s intellectual deficiencies define his character. He has a painfully child-like naivete about the world. He is unwaveringly truthful. The gadgets he uses to fight crime are best described as the intersection of MacGyver, Inspector Gadget, and a young kid playing pretend in the schoolyard. These things make him endearing but also pitiable; the boy ain’t right.

This choice, to define the protagonist by these characteristics, is so out of the ordinary and so purposeful that it practically demands to be analyzed for its deeper message. However, if one is there, it is too subtle for me. Is it condemning vigilantism or supporting it? On the one hand, Defendor suffers greatly for his need to intervene, but on the other hand he becomes a positive symbol to those who know or are inspired by him. Perhaps it is trying to make some statement about fatalism, implying that people feel so trapped by their circumstances that it takes a mentally unwell person, who is too foolish to know he is trapped, to show them there is hope? Yet Defendor is frequently framed by the film as a buffoon, tacitly implying that his worldview is more quixotic than it is admirable, let alone correct. At least in James Gunn’s markedly similar Super, the movie’s absurd, violent, and darkly funny tone create a sort of fascinating train wreck that, while not high cinema, is engrossing enough to pull you into its madness. Defendor, on the other hand, does not have that specific a point of view. Instead, it is vaguely dark and gritty, though not in a terribly thoughtful way, with punctuations of sadness, silliness, and a schmaltzy coat of paint slapped on in the final minutes of the piece. This patchwork tone, combined with a lack of underlying point or message, makes Defendor a much less interesting film to watch.

Ironically, how bizarre and uncomfortable the story can be is only made more apparent by the excellent acting. Woody Harrelson displays some of the best acting I’ve seen from him and Kat Dennings elevates a rather stock junkie character to something with real heart and humanity. Elias Koteas makes his scummy character so deplorable you can’t help but admire his performance. The only black mark on the acting was the main mobster and his lackeys, who I didn’t find either menacing or imposing. A villain doesn’t have to be a cartoonish representation of evil, but they should at least have a presence on screen that sells why they are feared, respected, or at least successful at what they do, none of which was present in the antagonists of this film.

Defendor is a mediocre movie that makes a lot of sound and fury but amounts to very little. It doesn’t seem to know what it is trying to say and in that lack of clear tone its story falls apart. It doesn’t have much to say about superheroes as pop culture figures, being a hero as a concept, or really anything else. It is not an enjoyable watch nor does it reward you in any way, emotionally or intellectually, for having gone through it. There are much better options to watch in the genre of deconstructed superhero movies, like Super, Griff The Invisible, Kick-Ass, or even Logan, and I’d recommend you just watch those instead.

Would Recommend: If you didn’t just adopt the tonal dark weirdness, but were born in it, molded by it.

Would Not Recommend: If you want a movie to be more than a deconstruction for its own sake.