Listening to: The end credits of Defendor
As you may have gathered if you bother to read my location/listening to things at the beginning of each post, I just finished watching the movie Defendor. And, guys, I can honestly say...I feel tricked. (Warning: Anything past this point may contain spoilers.)
I stumbled across this movie when I worked at a local video rental store last year. It came out last spring and was on the movie preview reel we has to play at the store. The clips it showed were cute or funny, and it stars Woody Harrelson and Kat Dennings, so I figured it had to be good. Kat Dennings cracks me up, so I didn't think there was a way she could be in a movie I wouldn't like.
I was wrong.
At first appearances, this movie seems like it's going to be a superhero comedy along the lines of Kick-Ass and...um...those other superhero comedies. It's about a guy who has a superhero alter ego and gains an unlikely sidekick in a young prostitute.
What they don't tell you on the back of the box (or the website synopsis or the previews) is that the guy who thinks he's a superhero? He's mentally handicapped. And his young prostitute sidekick is a coke addict who's dad is a scumbag child molester or something. This sweet and innocent guy, played by Woody Harrelson, who doesn't know any better is trying to get rid of "Captain Industry", the man he thinks murdered his mother when he was a child. "Captain Industry" is not a person. He heard his grandfather/older male mentor/caretaker refer to the drug lords who killed his mom as "captains of industry" and believed "Captain Industry" to be his mother's killer. So he poses as Defendor and tries to get rid of the scumbags that roam his city as he searches for "Captain Industry."
He comes across a young prostitute, played by Kat Dennings, and saves her once or twice, and they become unlikely friends. Except, she's using all of his money to buy drugs for herself and using his desire to avenge his mother's death to try and get rid of some drug lord/pimp/baddie who she didn't like by saying that he is "Captain Industry".
I'm not going to ruin the ending for you, except to say it isn't happy. In fact, it's rather sad. Not at all the uplifting, positive, moral-inducing conclusion you hope for.
Overall, it wasn't a terrible movie. But I can't for the life of me figure out why they advertised it as a comedy. Nothing about it was funny. Almost everything about it was kind of depressing.
Anyway, Internet, I feel duped. Tricked. Bamboozled.
I think this situation calls for ice cream.
More later.
I hate when movies trick me into thinking they are going to be something else when they aren't! You need to eat you some ice cream and watch a happy movie!
ReplyDeleteAnother example of false movie advertising is "In Bruges." FANTASTIC film, but not for the reasons they show you in the previews. It's also one of those that is not actually all that comedic but the previews tell you otherwise. So if you have a chance to see it sometime, which you should (it has Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes in it, HP cast FTW) be warned that it will be thought provoking, morbidly humorous, but leave you feeling stirred emotionally, not chuffed to bits.
ReplyDeleteOn that note, ice cream ahoy!