Citizen Vigilante

I could write an essay about the politics and culture this movie represents but ultimately, if you've kept up with the discussion at all then you already know if you like this movie before you even see it. I only watched it because I was curious after all the outrage, but I want to keep this as brief as I can.

I don't hate this movie as a movie. It's bad but it's not the worst thing I've seen either. There's some artistic merit. For example, the framework here is not bad. This movie is equally about Hammer getting "justice" and how society views him. That's not a terrible idea for a revenge flick. Citizen Vigilante is not a revenge movie with tons of great choreography. It's more of a political statement, a drama of sorts with occasional moments of quick violence where Hammer is in no danger. I'm okay with that. I like the Purge franchise a lot and that's so militant it's impossible to miss that it's about racism and class war.

The problem is... it's bland. And it plods because Boll didn't understand pacing. There's a degree of horror here but that's mostly because it stars an American psycho who as an illegal himself who funnily enough will inflate the misunderstood/misrepresented statistic at the end about migrant violent crime being up 17%. But none of it is exciting. We watch the dude monologue his nonsense repeatedly. It's more like a video essay than a movie at times.

The big action sequence where he massacres cops is boring as shit. It's also funny because they try to paint him as moral when he basically says, "Go away now and I won't kill you." So he kills them. Okay. Whatever. He doesn't want to be stopped. But then he leaves explosives in his shelter so cops, who aren't involved in the shootout, open it up and then get blown up.

There are other bad scenes too. The pretty extended sex scene where Hammer finds mold is cringey. His big moral declaration in the car about how people will follow the law regardless is so funny. He kills someone innocent for no reason. Okay, he makes a "point." Here it is: "See what happened? That car, when we went into their lane, instead of crossing the line and breaking the law and going into our lane, they went into a ditch. And most likely died."

Hammer is decent, bringing some intensity to the role, but it's a poorly written role. There's nothing to the guy outside of the fact he kills people and wants to evict people as fast as possible. There's no complexity like with the Punisher. No cool moments. No real reason to care about him at all unless you like that he kills brown people? And innocent people? Or cops?

It wouldn't even be so bad if the movie framed him as a lunatic who became deranged due to misinformation or whatever. You could actually make a case then that because he's so deeply troubled his morals are out of whack and inconsistent. That's not what this movie does. He's viewed as heroic, from Europe to the USA to even Canada (my home). He'll roll up to a house and ask, "Do you feel like you got justice?" and when they say no he treats that as permission to kill whoever wronged them. And we are supposed to think, "Well he was doing what the people wanted." And again, if this movie was more than what it is, I could believe that.

But it's not. The politics are on main. It makes up shit to prove its point. For example, it just says EUROPE at the beginning. Okay, but where in Europe? The data about violent crime involving undocumented immigrants actually changes depending on where in Europe it is. But it wants us to believe the typical right-wing talking point that immigrants are ruining EUROPE. AS A WHOLE.

I honestly believe this movie would be a forgettable revenge flick at worst if it wasn't for the politics attached. Like leave out the undocumented migrant messaging and you got a revenge flick about a guy who sees corruption and is doing something about it. This movie was made for the anti-woke Conservatives. If you want a movie that bluntly states that the Islamist extremists and woke left are ruining the country you will like this.