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Description
Defendor is a 2009 dramatic movie about Woody Harrelson in the role of Arthur Poppington, a slightly mentally challenged man who dons a superhero persona "Defendor" in something of a Don Quixote complex, and similar to him Arthur wants to avenge the death of his mother by the hands of an evil figure he calls "Captain Industry", and on his questo to find Captain Industry he befriends the young hooker Kat (who gets a Dulcinea treatment) and faces the painful, serious consequences one would face if they decided to go after and challenge dangerous criminals.

I know what some of you may be thinking: "So it's kinda like Kick-Ass and Super, regular people becoming masked vigilantes", and you'd be correct. And I'd say Defendor is better than either of those.

Now listen, I enjoyed both for different reasons as a high schooler who was turning into a movie nut (and I have nothing against you liking either film, I'M SPEAKING FOR MYSELF) I was angsty, I was excited, I was going through a lot of new emotional phases due to my hormones and I was seeing cartoons and movies in a different light and expanding my horizons as I was transitioning from tween to young adult. Thus, those two very violent and crass films were my bread and butter.
But as I got older, nowadays, I actually don't like neither Kick-Ass or Super that much anymore, if it wasn't for the nostalgia they make me feel, I'd probably not care about them at all.

ESPECIALLY Super doesn't hold up, I love James Gunn and his style, but in that fucking film... at one point one of the main characters rapes the other.
...Quentin Tarantino has his violent and morally questionable protagonists, but even he knows when to stop and not have them do something that makes them unlikable, such as raping someone. He usually has the VILLAINS do that and then have them dying in brutal, cathartic ways for what they've done because rape really is a 'special kind of evil'. And at no point in Super they address that or discuss it afterwards, it was done for the hell of it and cheap shock value.
Super thrilled my teen self, but nowadays its violence and "edginess" makes my adult self groan and feel apathetic towards its severely designated good guys, and being annoyed at how both that and Kick-Ass started off being grounded but then they progressively get unrealistic, they don't follow through, they don't fucking stick to the "what if someone attempted to be a superhero in real life" concept without jumping the shark or botching the realism to varying degrees.
Defendor doesn't fucking end with him flying a jetpack or having the bad guys suddenly becoming weak stormtroopers who can't aim or fight for shit.

Kick-Ass and Super also do their damnedest to be edgy and violent, and yet a film like Joker caused a WAY bigger uproar and controversy among critics and audiences despite the fact that the most violent things that happen in it... is a few people getting shot.
(yes, I know there's also a guy getting stabbed to death with scissors, but notice how people hardly comment on that and the shooting scenes are more controversial)
That's because when you use violence sparingly in the right moments after masterfully building up tension in the story, it's WAY more effective than over the top violence and a lot of cursing. It's called "less is more", and not doing it for the hell of it.
So when Defendor gets violent, dark, touches upon sensitive topics or bad things happen to Arthur Poppington I really care and feel for him. Again, it also helps when the movie actually maintains its "this guy wants to be a superhero but real life ensues" premise all the way through.

I guess Defendor is largely forgotten because it had very poor distribution due to its low budget, and because it came out at the wrong time.
In 2009 everyone still had The Dark Knight and Iron Man in mind, so this smaller, more dramatic and realistic project was largely ignored.
It didn't help that the trailers made it look like a comedy when it's everything BUT a comedy. Then Kick-Ass and Super came along, then people grew bored of them, and everyone just kinda forgot about this entire tiny sub-genre of "real life superhero" films.
I believe that if Defendor came out these days, when people are a bit overwhelmed by the superhero formula and want to see something different, it'd have a better reception, in fact I'd say that's one of the reasons Joker was so successful, it opted to be more of a grounded, Martin Scorsese-inspired period drama instead of another thing about dashing superheroes using fancy tech and explosive action scenes with CGI monsters.

Since Joker too tackled the life and struggles of a mentally ill protagonist, it made me want to revisit Defendor and I did and I really enjoyed it, I see so much value and intelligence that my younger self didn't appreciate, so I recommend it to anyone interested.
It's just a well acted, mature, genuine, touching little superhero-inspired film, and on the sliding scale of cynicism and idealism, it does fall more on the idealistic side than Joker does, so it's an interesting companion piece of sorts.

Description
Defendor is a 2009 dramatic movie about Woody Harrelson in the role of Arthur Poppington, a slightly mentally challenged man who dons a superhero persona "Defendor" in something of a Don Quixote complex, and similar to him Arthur wants to avenge the death of his mother by the hands of an evil figure he calls "Captain Industry", and on his questo to find Captain Industry he befriends the young hooker Kat (who gets a Dulcinea treatment) and faces the painful, serious consequences one would face if they decided to go after and challenge dangerous criminals.

I know what some of you may be thinking: "So it's kinda like Kick-Ass and Super, regular people becoming masked vigilantes", and you'd be correct. And I'd say Defendor is better than either of those.

Now listen, I enjoyed both for different reasons as a high schooler who was turning into a movie nut (and I have nothing against you liking either film, I'M SPEAKING FOR MYSELF) I was angsty, I was excited, I was going through a lot of new emotional phases due to my hormones and I was seeing cartoons and movies in a different light and expanding my horizons as I was transitioning from tween to young adult. Thus, those two very violent and crass films were my bread and butter.
But as I got older, nowadays, I actually don't like neither Kick-Ass or Super that much anymore, if it wasn't for the nostalgia they make me feel, I'd probably not care about them at all.

ESPECIALLY Super doesn't hold up, I love James Gunn and his style, but in that fucking film... at one point one of the main characters rapes the other.
...Quentin Tarantino has his violent and morally questionable protagonists, but even he knows when to stop and not have them do something that makes them unlikable, such as raping someone. He usually has the VILLAINS do that and then have them dying in brutal, cathartic ways for what they've done because rape really is a 'special kind of evil'. And at no point in Super they address that or discuss it afterwards, it was done for the hell of it and cheap shock value.
Super thrilled my teen self, but nowadays its violence and "edginess" makes my adult self groan and feel apathetic towards its severely designated good guys, and being annoyed at how both that and Kick-Ass started off being grounded but then they progressively get unrealistic, they don't follow through, they don't fucking stick to the "what if someone attempted to be a superhero in real life" concept without jumping the shark or botching the realism to varying degrees.
Defendor doesn't fucking end with him flying a jetpack or having the bad guys suddenly becoming weak stormtroopers who can't aim or fight for shit.

Kick-Ass and Super also do their damnedest to be edgy and violent, and yet a film like Joker caused a WAY bigger uproar and controversy among critics and audiences despite the fact that the most violent things that happen in it... is a few people getting shot.
(yes, I know there's also a guy getting stabbed to death with scissors, but notice how people hardly comment on that and the shooting scenes are more controversial)
That's because when you use violence sparingly in the right moments after masterfully building up tension in the story, it's WAY more effective than over the top violence and a lot of cursing. It's called "less is more", and not doing it for the hell of it.
So when Defendor gets violent, dark, touches upon sensitive topics or bad things happen to Arthur Poppington I really care and feel for him. Again, it also helps when the movie actually maintains its "this guy wants to be a superhero but real life ensues" premise all the way through.

I guess Defendor is largely forgotten because it had very poor distribution due to its low budget, and because it came out at the wrong time.
In 2009 everyone still had The Dark Knight and Iron Man in mind, so this smaller, more dramatic and realistic project was largely ignored.
It didn't help that the trailers made it look like a comedy when it's everything BUT a comedy. Then Kick-Ass and Super came along, then people grew bored of them, and everyone just kinda forgot about this entire tiny sub-genre of "real life superhero" films.
I believe that if Defendor came out these days, when people are a bit overwhelmed by the superhero formula and want to see something different, it'd have a better reception, in fact I'd say that's one of the reasons Joker was so successful, it opted to be more of a grounded, Martin Scorsese-inspired period drama instead of another thing about dashing superheroes using fancy tech and explosive action scenes with CGI monsters.

Since Joker too tackled the life and struggles of a mentally ill protagonist, it made me want to revisit Defendor and I did and I really enjoyed it, I see so much value and intelligence that my younger self didn't appreciate, so I recommend it to anyone interested.
It's just a well acted, mature, genuine, touching little superhero-inspired film, and on the sliding scale of cynicism and idealism, it does fall more on the idealistic side than Joker does, so it's an interesting companion piece of sorts.