Review of Defendor (2009) by Danny S — 17 Aug 2010

An oddly emotional and strangely captivating twist on the costumed-superhero genre. Woody Harrelson (The Messenger, Kingpin, The People vs. Larry Flynt) stars as simple-minded Arthur Poppington who dons a costume of black fabric trimmed with silver duct tape adorned with a D -- which stands for Defendor -- to stamp out crime and lowlife thugs in his city.

After attacking an undercover cop a few times (Elias Koteas [Zodiac, Gattaca, Shutter Island]), Arthur is arrested and psychologically evaluated by a framing-character played by Sandra Oh (Grey's Anatomy, Sideways).

She listens to his story of what he is doing and where he came from and realizes the man is not off of his rocker and believes that he is doing good and on the trail of an evil Captain Industry. Befriending Arthur along the way, is a young druggie/hooker (a nice Kat Dennings [Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, The 40 Year Old Virgin and the upcoming Thor]) who is in need of some guidance.

At first she takes advantage of the simple guy; but quickly realizes he might be one of the best things to come into her life. Believing bullets bounce right off of him -- there is a reason -- you constantly feel a dread that something bad might happen to Defendor.

Harrelson does a great job bringing this character to life and the movie works mostly become of his efforts. I applaud the film for not taking it too lightly and superheroic. It is kind of dark and gritty .

.. kind of like the world we live in. I actually enjoyed this little oddity as it was a mix of dark humor and heavy emotion. Well done Peter Stebbings.