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





Reviews published in
Nine Days
There have been quite a few films like Nine Days, the life-after-death genre that has been presented many times before in such films as Heaven Can Wait, Albert Brook's Defending Your Life, Kore-eda Hirokazu’s After Life, [...]
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 [...]
Val
A truly skillful and passionate actor who certainly endured his fair share of scrutiny for being "difficult to work with"--Val Kilmer's career is certainly idiosyncratic that is dispersed with many highlights (Heat, Tombstone, Willow, The [...]
Annette
A highlight of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, Annette, the surreal rock opera tragedy and sixth full-length feature film from French auteur Leos Carax is an audacious and unforgettable experience. A remarkable film that will [...]
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 [...]
Old
Old marks the 14th feature in M. Night Shyamalan oeuvre as a writer-director. Back in the horror/sci-fi realm that he's most comfortable in, though not as effective as his masterworks like the 1999 breakthrough classic [...]
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 [...]
Pig
Newcomer Michael Sarnoski's modern "revenge" saga, Pig, plays with the notion of a protagonist who's a reclusive outsider who goes back to the outside world once his truffle pig is stolen from him. Distributed by [...]
Black Widow
The long-awaited solo outing for Natasha Romanoff AKA Black Widow has hit a few speed bumps along its way to release, as has most tentpole films over the past 16 months. While the MCU has [...]
False Positive
Stand up comedian Iliana Glazer gets to showcase her dramatic chops in TV director John Lee's sophomore feature film, False Positive. A fresh cinematic face where she gets the opportunity to shine in more of [...]
No Sudden Move
Prolific auteur Steven Soderbergh always takes great liberties stylistically and visually, no matter what film he's crafting, or what genre he dives into. His latest film to hit HBO Max, No Sudden Move is a [...]
Good on Paper
liza Shlesinger's amusing but clunky Good on Paper, directed by actress and Hollywood TV director, Kimmy Gatewood, is mostly a clever and highly watchable rom-com that is now streaming on Netflix. With a breezy pace [...]
Zola
Writer-director Janicza Bravo will certainly be a familiar name for her latest film, her sophomore feature titled Zola, which may be the very first film that I'm aware of that is based on an article [...]




















