Defendor (2009)

I've been terribly busy with other stuff since my last posting up till now, but fortunately I managed to see a couple of movies (actually .. exactly two), and the one about I'm writing probably deserves better than the half of hour I'm able to spend telling about it. "Defendor" is a fake super hero movie belonging to a genre that seems quite successfully in the last two years with three titles. We had also "Kick-Ass" which I've seen and "Super", which I just found out that's on the schedule tonight at one festival from where I'm living, but of course I have other stuff to do and no time for it.

If in the case of "Kick-Ass" we were presented with a pretty solid budget, effects, etc, resulting in a totally demented stuff rated R, with a big R, being probably perfect for the definition of guilty pleasure = you're fully aware at the end that pushed the limits a bit too far but you can't say that it wasn't funny, in case of "Defendor" we have a completely different approach. First of all, it's a drama .. not a comedy .. and this is already a pretty big spoiler, because it starts giving the impression of a comedy but in the end you can definitely say it's a drama. Defendor is a homeless guy without a family, helped by the current employer to live another day, and on top of all has also a little problem concerning his mental abilities that apparently remained at his childhood level. The result = during the night he turns into a "super" hero armed with "gadgets" ranging from little balls of glass to little wasp jars, searching for the evil "Captain Industry". Well, the mental issue doesn't cover exactly all the cause for this, but I won't say more, because there must be something to be left to see after all. The only thing I'll mention on top of what's above is that, incredibly but true, "Defendor" finds his enemy (well .. an enemy) and the way the story unfolds gets really touching, keeping itself simultaneously funny however, until the end.

The lead role is absolutely impeccable played by Woody Harrelson. It's beed a while since I've watched "Rain Man" with Dustin Hoffman but I think I can risk to say that's a comparable level. About the rest, the production is low budget = don't expect something like "Kick-Ass". Anyway .. there is an aspect that I think I'll remember for a while. The movie has one of the best soundtracks I've heard lately. Starting with the original part composed by a guy who's completely unknown to me - John Rowley, up to the songs part that gave me the chance to discover a canadian band - Metric (and to be more exact the song is "Help I'm Alive").

I'll finish this entry with a couple of words about the end of the movie with the risk of increasing the earlier spoiler, but I'm gonna try to keep it a bit cryptic. It's 99.9999999 % certain that the end of the movie will seem obvious and clear to you. 0.0000001 % is a little bee that you have in the last scene, and if you let it fly away with you imagination sufficiently far enough you'll probably reach another conclusion ;)

Rating: 4 out of 5