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
Reminiscence
Lisa Joy, co-creator of the critically acclaimed sci-fi television series Westworld, debuts her first feature film Reminiscence. Keeping to her roots of sci-fi neo-noir themes, we follow our protagonist Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) in the [...]
Don’t Breathe 2
A late-summer surprise hit, Fede Alvarez's Don't Breathe was a breath of fresh air when it was released at the tail end of summer 2016. The tight craft, maximum usage of its setting and high-concept, [...]
Jungle Cruise
Adaptations of classic Disney park rides have had a hit-or-miss reputation with one becoming one of the pinnacle blockbusters franchises of the 00's with Pirates of the Caribbean and less successful ones such as The [...]
The Suicide Squad
James Gunn's The Suicide Squad is a goddamn miracle. A modern marvel of grindhouse exploitation set within the confines of a big-budget comic book spectacle, the soft reboot/sequel to the much-maligned and tinkered-with 2016 film, [...]
1991 Retrospective: The Best Films of 1991
Like any other year, 1991 was a versatile year that offered a wide range of genres and filmmaking styles that could satisfy just about anyone. However, it was also a year and during a time [...]
Stillwater
Will Matt Damon still hold the same lead man pull he once did in Tom McCarthy's Stillwater, which opens July 30th, 2021 in this COVID inducing world? Inevitable comparisons of this film will be made [...]
The Green Knight
David Lowery’s elliptical and sensational adaptation of the 14th century epic poem "Sir Gawain & The Green Knight" is not only a true cinematic masterwork, but one of the more invigorating adaptations of classic literature [...]
Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins
Henry Golding is a bona-fide movie star; unquestionably. With a charisma seen only by the classic film stars of old and the sculpted physique of any macho action star of yesteryear, the British star is [...]
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain is just that, the documentary film is by Oscar winning director Morgan Deville (20 Feet to Stardom, Best of Enemies), who is no stranger to directing docs about people [...]
Review Round-Up 7/20
There have been a number of recent titles that managed to sneak their way past our usual schedule of reviews, so instead of leaving them untouched, we figured it would be a good idea to [...]
Steven Soderbergh Retrospective (Film Rankings from Worst to Best)
Perhaps the Robert Altman of our era due to his large ensembles, prolific filmography, and his terrain into a wide variety of genres like the late maverick--American filmmaker Steven Soderbergh has now been making films [...]
Space Jam: A New Legacy
The 1996 original film, Space Jam, is more fondly remembered by those who grew up around the time of the mid-to-late 90’s and although it’s no classic in terms of quality, it had its own [...]
