About Defacto Film Reviews
Defacto Film Reviews is a unique site where the film critics are also filmmakers themselves. It will feature weekly reviews as well as lists and more.
Originally formed in 2002 under Defactoweb.com, our website’s chief film critic is Robert Joseph Butler. His top ten lists were featured under Movie City News. His reviews have also been published at Michigan Movie Magazine and on Michigan’s longest running film school website, MPIFilm.com. His reviews have also been featured and published in The Oakland Press as well, which is one of Michigan’s largest newspaper publications.
He later went on to become an award-winning filmmaker of several independent short films including such festival hits as The Spirit of Isabel and Within, which won the Audience Choice Award at the 2015 Cinetopia International Film Festival. His short film “The Girl on the Mat” won Best Screenplay at the 2017 Queens World Film Festival. His most recent feature length movie, “Blood Immortal,” won Best Horror Feature Film at the 24th annual Indie Gathering International Film Festival and is now available to own on DVD and is available on Digital streaming platforms.
Using grassroots support, the site is devoted to celebrating independent and art-house cinema, as well as to high-crafted films that tell engaging stories with vision, focus, and skill.
Defacto Film Reviews is a unique case where the film critics are also filmmakers themselves. We will give readers comprehensible, honest, and erudite analysis of each film.
Rating System–4 Stars
Masterpiece/Top 10 Worthy
Exceptional
Quality
Mediocre
Poor
Reviews published in
Bad Boys: Ride or Die
The third entry in the Bad Boys franchise, Bad Boys For Life, the last major blockbuster released before the Pandemic shut the world down, felt like a breath of fresh air in how it successfully [...]
The Watchers
The Watchers is an ambitious, perplexing journey into the wild forests of Ireland, and an acceptable debut from Ishana Night Shyamalan.
Robot Dreams
Robot Dreams, based on the 2007 Sara Varon novel of the same name, and directed by Pablo Berger, is an independent animated wonder.
Young Woman and the Sea
Familiar but engaging, Joachim Rønning's biographical sports drama, about the taxing journey of swimmer Trudy Ederle and how she was the first swimmer to swim across the English Channel, certainly holds a lot of sports [...]
The Commandant’s Shadow
Many thoughts occurred to this reviewer while watching The Commandant’s Shadow, not the least of which was why has there not been a bigger push to market this film? This is one of the best, most [...]
Summer Camp
Summer Camp is a story about three friends who grow up, grow apart and come back together. Or, that is probably how it was pitched and, for the first twenty minutes or so, it really seems to be holding true to that premise.
In a Violent Nature
The innovative slasher In a Violent Nature combines '80s campground thrills with a calculated and somnolent approach to realism, resulting in something truly different.
The Garfield Movie
The Garfield Movie, the most recent adaptation of Jim Davis’s legendary feline, is not the most traditional version of this story or characters yet, in many ways, it just feels right. Sure, Garfield does not [...]
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
In the nine years since its release, Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller's return to his iconic post-apocalyptic Wasteland, has become this titan of the film world. A film plagued by a chaotic film shoot [...]
Back to Black
Back to Black, the new film about the life and career of the late singer, Amy Winehouse, is, like too many biographical pictures, a mostly disappointing work. This is not because it is actively bad. [...]
I Saw the TV Glow
Far more surrealist and avant-garde in approach than horror, Jane Schoenbrun's sophomore feature, I Saw the TV Glow, is, for better or for worse, going to defy the audience's expectations. While A24 is marketing the [...]
The Strangers: Chapter 1
The Strangers: Chapter 1 is a painfully tame retread of the bleak 2008 original.
Nowhere Special
Nowhere Special is a film with an ironic title. Very seldom have acts of pure love and selflessness been demonstrated on film, as here, in the tale of a dying window washer and his toddler son. [...]
The Last Stop in Yuma County
Francis Galluppi’s feature directorial debut, The Last Stop in Yuma County, is a simple, yet entertaining crime thriller with purpose-driven performances and a fair amount of action as well. Galluppi, who wrote, edited and directed [...]