Defendor

You never know what you might get when you rent a movie that was straight to DVD. While for the most part I figured this would be a dark satire or parody of the superhero genre it ended up being much different then I thought and actually very enjoyable to watch. On the surface this seems like it may be a movie that parodies the superhero genre by playing on the excess and the sillier elements. The opening scene of the movie makes you believe this is what the movie will be with a hysterical spoofing of overblown superhero film cliches, including rooftop billowing fog, high contrast city lights against nighttime darkness, and larger than life acrobatic feats, in which Defendor remarks "always check garbage days" as he lays wounded in a garbage dumpster that had been recently emptied. Stebbings though has grander visions of what the film will be and subtly lays this out as the film progresses.

The largest amount of success for this film lays completely in Harrelsons' performance. It relies on his success because 80% of the dialogue is Harrelson speaking. Harrelson's naturally wacky yet powerful charisma exemplifies the essence of the film, beautifully blending child-like emotional simplicity, tenacious determination and enough flat out weirdness to make it all ring true, as well as an inspired ripoff of Christian Bale's now iconic Batman voice. Defendor's narrative becomes steadily more engrossing, settling on a tone pitched halfway between exhilarating crime/mystery thriller and poignant character study.

Stebbings' in his directorial debut does very admirable. While many directors in the early going may lose their vision at times throughout the movie, Stebbings is able to remain focus and really only seems to lose his way near the climax, but even though the rhythm was lost for a moment he successfully pulls the vision back on point. One of the greatest parts that works was the subplot that was actually borrowed from Nolan's recent success with the Batman movies of the importance of heroism, could have been very clumsy and fell flat on its face, yet it added more nuance and complexity to the unfolding film without coming across as excessively pretentious.

With a movie like this that really does not have a ton of dialogue and is told in a narrative form at most spots, the other part of the movie that the success hinges on is that of the score. John Rowley provides a grandiose score that successfully encompass each tonal shift, whether gleefully riffing on superhero musical motifs or offering something more profound and honest, either way adding welcome depth and volume to a film already far from lacking in either.

This was a very enjoyable straight to DVD rental and really allowed me to just sit back relax and think on a whole new level. Because of this I am giving this a three buckets of popcorn out of five. I will give fair warning though as this movie is rated R for language, drug use and some sexual content.

-The Movie Man-