By day, Arthur Poppington is a mild-mannered construction site worker. By night, he is Defendor, a costumed hero who patrols the city in search of his archnemesis, "Captain Industry". When he finds a criminal, he employs his grandfather's trench club and a jar full of wasps to punish them. "Feel the sting of justice" is something Defendor might say, if Arthur were better at coming up with pithy fight quotes.
Defendor's crusade has several key flaws. The most immediately obvious of these is that he's just a regular guy who has put on a costume. Yes, he's brave and fairly tough, but he's got no special training, nor access to all kinds of gadgets. He does definitely demonstrate some low-budget inventiveness with his weaponised wasps and some voice-activated gadgets ... but as anyone who's tried to use the voice assistant on their mobile phone knows, that's still a somewhat problem prone technology.
Less immediately obvious, but perhaps even more critical, is that Arthur's understanding of the world and how it works is little better than that of a child. He sees things in very simple, literal ways - hence his decision to become a costumed hero - and nuances like "some cops are bad people" and "vigilantism is against the law" entirely escape him. If his quest for justice actually brings him into contact with the real hardened criminal element of the city, will he really be prepared for it?
Defendor apparently struggled to secure funding and distribution, and I can see why that would be the case. This is not a movie that fits neatly into a genre or classification. It's certainly got humour in it - I particularly liked the "Defendoor" and "Defendog" visual gags, which are not just amusing but also help underline Arthur's 'comic book' view of the world - but it's not a "comedy". Its moments of sadness are too convincing and its consequences too serious to fit under that banner. It's also not a "parody", despite the fact that it's a superhero movie about a man who isn't super at all. Again, it's too real and Arthur is too heroic (in his flawed and limited way) to be a subject of ridicule. But it's probably got too many quirky absurdities for many people to accept it as a "drama", and it lacks the spectacle to be an "action film".
I personally liked the film a lot, and think it has a lot of good elements, but it's definitely a movie that's marching to the beat of its own drum, and that's going to be a hard sell, commercially speaking.
So, what are those good elements?
Well first, let's start with the cast. How did this low budget Canadian film get so many talented people on board? It has Woody Harrelson, Kat Dennings, Elias Koteas, Michael Kelly and Sandra Oh. Plus a pre-Orphan Black Tatiana Maslany in a very minor role!
All deliver their usual strong work. Harrelson may have gone down to the wingnut factory in recent years, but he's a compelling actor when he wants to be, and does a great job as the earnest but not all together "with it" Arthur Poppington / Defendor.
The writer has also clearly given some thought to how a normal person with limited resources might try to emulate a superhero. Defendor's crime fighting accoutrements are well chosen - they are things that it would be possible for an ordinary person of limited means to get, and which might serve the purpose he's chosen for them, albeit in a much more limited way than a "real" superhero's gadgets. Marbles are no batarangs, but if someone chucks one at you with full force, it's going to hurt.
The story in general is more thoroughly thought out than the film's goofy title and premise might suggest.
One thing that I was worried about while watching the film was that they might do a blatant Harrelson/Dennings romance, which I'd find a bit on the nose because he's 25 years older than her. They didn't outright go there, though. There was obviously affection between their characters, but not necessarily romantic/sexual affection. I got the impression that Arthur wasn't really aware of such things, in fact.
Do I have any outright complaints about the film? A couple. I'm not a fan of the script's endorsement of torture as an effective technique for the "good guy" to use. I also foudn the ending to be a little bit pat/optimistic, overall.
I did however really like that this is a superhero film where the good guy doesn't just win by punching the bad guy a whole lot (which is not to say that he doesn't try to win like that, mind you!)
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