DEFENDOR is one of those anti-superhero comedies about normal, everyday figures who don ridiculous costumes and turn vigilante to take crime off the streets. KICK-ASS is the best known of these, and an action film in its own right, but the film that DEFENDOR is most similar to is SUPER. Having seen both, I much preferred SUPER, which was funnier and more satirical. DEFENDOR has a sadness about it in the depiction of a mentally ill Woody Harrelson who is convinced that his destiny is to battle crime. The reliable Elias Koteas gives the best performance while others like Sandra Oh are a distraction, but in the end DEFENDOR neither thrills nor amuses, just proving to be a time-waster and nothing more.

Indeed, if he was an orphan and lived in a crime-filled depressive slum of a town, becoming Defendor could be Mr Gump's idea of upholding the good. Both characters are mentally stuck in their childhood and are haunted by the traumatized past in their present.But Defendor is no Forrest Gump. And it's definitely not Woody Harrelson's fault, because portraying a brave and righteous but weak-minded and ultimately very vulnerable Arthur Poppington was definitely a step up on his acting ladder.The real problem is the film's mood. Forrest Gump was more or less a fairy tale. In a Grimm'esque sense of course, with dark and sinister twists and turns, but with an overall feel-good vibe and a sad but happy ending. Defendor, on the other hand, is no fantasy but rather a child's perception of the adult people's real world's problems. You see it from the get-go that there's no chance for this story to end well, and only a lucky combination of unlikely events allows the protagonist to get that far.In that sense Defendor is more like Observe and Report with Seth Rogen, where he's a glaring opposite of his typical easy and wisecracking slacker roles. That movie is no less sad than Defendor, but at least it dares to show the misery of a person lost in the maze of his mind and his life realistically. Rogen's Ronnie, a shopping mall security officer obsessed with making himself important, is a mirror in which lots of us, who have lost hope for a brighter future, could see themselves. While Defendor, with its heroization and optimism grounded in nothing, is as real as a burnt sugar lollipop: dark and bitter but nonetheless cloyingly oversweetened.

I'm really not interested in writing a review here. This movie is an experience. People...just watch it. Hats off to the indie studios of Hollywood. They produce these gems of movies. PS: Found out that this movie is produced by Darius Films. Great going Darius Films.PPS: OK, after writing the above comments, I tried to post it and IMDb will not allow it saying it is too short. This is exactly the antithesis to an unconventional movie like this. IMDb, hope this unnecessary comment fulfills your "length requirement". Please don't enforce stupid rule like this.

This movie is to Super what Super is to Kick-Ass.By that I mean it's totally different in almost every possible way, they just happen to share the concept of "normal guy tries being a super-hero." All three are VERY different movies.You can call this movie a "dark comedy," but I would also classify it as a straight "superhero movie." Just in this case, the superhero is mentally handicapped. Does that automatically make it a comedy? Not necessarily. About the end of Act I, I realized the movie works best if you just take it as face value- giving you laughs where they're inevitable, but also taking itself seriously enough to have a real emotional reaction. I can't really place a genre for this film.Positives: the movie is pretty original for a genre that's been done to death lately. The story itself is actually interesting, and though it's a completely unbelievable series of events, somehow they are portrayed in a realistic manner. To the point where you laugh at the absurdity, then realize "that might just work." Some of the performances are good- everyone skates a thin line in this movie- as if it's all how adults seem to a 10-year old. I think the term is "kid gloves." And though it's not a demanding genre, the cinematography was good too- not "in your face" gritty, but unglamorous enough to feel real.Negatives: The movie's tone is very hard to pin down for the first 35 minutes or so. Basically it's uncomfortable at first- you don't want to laugh at Harrelson because he's mentally handicapped (because that part of the movie is done straight, humorlessly). Unlike Super, which paints the protagonist as someone who's right all along (and should know better), Defendor doesn't know better, and we're not sure if he's on the right side or not for most of Act I. Think of Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory.The characters also make a few glaring "common sense" errors that really bugged me. Like, significant "a real person wouldn't do that" ones, where if they didn't happen the movie could have ended right there.Lastly, it doesn't help that the movie is misadvertized as a quasi-spoof of super-hero movies, or at least as a flat-out comedy. Once I let that go (again, end of Act I), it really pulled me in, but until then I was just irritated with it, simply because it wasn't matching my expectations.So if you think the movie looks interesting (or funny, even), definitely give it a shot. It's a charming story, but it's got some rough edges, and it's not for everyone.