Defendor

• 
  
  September 19, 2009

  MovieGeek13

  FROM TIFF:
  I only had time to see five films at the Toronto International Film Festival this year. Bummer.
  Fortunately, I peaked early with this brilliant masterpiece starring Woody Harrelson, Kat Dennings, and Elias Koteas. The fact that this is Peter Stebbing's first featur...( read more)e makes this even more of a great achievement.
  Imagine a superhero without Spidey sense, superhuman strength, or billions of dollars to create gadgets and weaponry. He probably wouldn't be very super at all. Meet Arthur Poppington, a self-made vigilante who dresses up in black, sports an old army helmet, duck tapes the letter D to his chest, and calls himself Defendor. His weapons: an old WW2 club, bags of marbles, and jars of angry wasps - yes, you read that right.
  But Defendor isn't a comedy. Yes, it's very funny. But it's a serious character study about Arthur, a mentally slow and lonely individual who is trying to make sense of his life. His only friend is a fellow construction worker who's son is alive only because Arthur was at the right place to save him.
  The magic of this movie lies solely in the hands of Woody Harrelson. What a masterful performance. Adding layer upon layer to the character of Arthur, Harrelson makes you fall in love with him and cheer him on as he fights crime in the goofiest and clumsiest way he only knows how. Yes, Kat Dennings and Elias Koteas are fantastic support, but the movie wouldn't work without Woody.
  The story remained firmly grounded in a sense of realism. It was able to achieve this by showing all the repercussions that Arthur's behaviour caused on criminals and authority figures, sometimes with tragic consequences. Arthur is as naiive a character as they come. He has no idea what he's doing, who he's hurting, or who is manipulating him. But his heart drives him to stopping evil, which makes him almost as innocent as the civilians he's trying to save. Arthur's backstory is told in flashbacks, which help us understand how and why Arthur came to don the suit of Defendor. In one scene, he even tells us, "Defendor is a better man than Arthur." And it's true, not only to Arthur, but to the people who become influenced by his actions.
  When the lights came on, the small theatre broke out in a huge round of applause. I could barely contain my enthusiasm. I told my girlfriend we won't see a better film at the festival. And we didn't.

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• Kat Dennings
• Woody Harrelson
• Elias Koteas
• Sandra Oh
• Lisa Ray
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