Due to what Uwe Boll calls the “migrant crime, a rape crisis and government fear,” he has decided to make his movie “Citizen Vigilante” available for free for the next 48 hours on X. Elon Musk posted the entire movie on his account, which has over 200 million followers.
Boll claims European countries, specifically Germany and the UK, are limiting the film’s distribution due to “cultural concerns.” He has used the word “banned” to describe the censorship, but it’s more accurate to say that those countries’ ratings boards refused to give “Citizen Vigilante” a rating, making it much harder to distribute. Boll claims the German board’s reasoning was that the film “was inciting violence against migrants.”
Having seen the film, yeah, that’s kind of what it does. Its explicit message, not hidden at all, is for European citizens to push back against migrants entering their countries and, if necessary, to use violence. The film, in its own ham-fisted way—a Boll specialty—doesn’t hide that at all. You get the usual unnecessary sex scene, thinly developed characters, abrupt shifts in tone, and rapid editing. Hammer remains stone-faced throughout.
“Citizen Vigilante” was released in select theaters and on digital last week. Reviews have been pretty much what you’d expect for a Boll movie, and there haven’t really been many. Critics have largely stayed far away from the film, but the controversy has turned it into his most talked-about movie in decades.
In the film, Armie Hammer plays a wealthy businessman, a riff on Bruce Wayne, whose side gig is that of a vigilante targeting violent migrant criminals and corrupt officials across Europe. Boll has said that the film is a “very dark and violent movie” featuring “rapes and knife attacks” as it examines the “landscape in Europe.”
It’s a furious anti-immigration parable. Basically, it’s a riff on Michael Winner’s “Death Wish,” with Middle Eastern villains. At one point, Boll decides it’s best for Hammer to invade a Muslim family’s home, kill the daughter, kill the parents—just massacre the entire family because of their son’s involvement in a rape gang. It’s wild stuff, and obviously a troll job on his part.
If you’re interested in watching “Citizen Vigilante” with your own eyes, you can watch it here, or in the embedded video below.
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