CITIZEN VIGILANTE: Garbage Message, Garbage Movie

CITIZEN VIGILANTE (Blu-ray)

2026 / 88 min

Event Film

Review by Stinky the Destroyer😾

Never mind that Citizen Vigilante reveals its anti-immigrant stance (with the subtlety of a hammer) in the first five minutes. Or that the film essentially blames all violent crime on Islamic extremists enabled by the “woke left.” Or that the protagonist is a privileged white man who vocally condemns a migrant family’s “archaic value system” before blowing them away. Or that this is the film neo-Nazi narcissist Elon Musk loved so much he served it up on Twitter for free. Or that the star of this hatefest had recently torpedoed his own career with allegations of sexual abuse and cannibalism.

Maybe some of you are fine with all that. Hell, maybe this is the kind of movie you’ve been waiting for, one with a message that speaks to the darkest regions of your heart. If so, I sure hope I don’t know any of you personally. But regardless of where you plant your flag, Citizen Vigilante is simply a bad movie, which probably shouldn’t come as a surprise. After all, this epic atrocity was written, produced, directed and shot by the notorious Uwe Boll. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, Boll is a German auteur who’s managed to make films for over 30 years without ever learning how. 

Armie had the choice of doing a cat food commercial or a Uwe Boll film. He now realizes he chose wrong.

The quasi-incomprehensible plot focuses on stone-faced property owner Michael Sanders (Armie Hammer, who displays one emotion). When he isn’t evicting poor people from his properties, he’s fast becoming a global hero by taking the law into his own hands, killing rapists and murderers (all foreigners of color), as well as public officials who’ve set them free. In the interim, he goes on the internet and spews jingoistic bile about taking the country back. Trying to stop him is dedicated Interpol cop Henry (Costas Mandylor), though we really don’t see him do anything throughout the entire film.

In fact, even would-be thrillseekers might be disappointed by the overall lack of action, and that Sanders does more talking than killing, putting us to sleep with laborious, jingoistic monologues (I get the impression Sanders is simply a conduit for Boll to voice his own personal grievances). Elsewhere, the film is poorly paced, structurally baffling, lazily written and apparently edited with a weed whacker. And hypocritically, the narrative sometimes belies its own message, as when Sanders slaughters an entire team of cops, and in another scene where he intentionally causes the death of an innocent motorist to prove a point to the judge he’s abducted. Or is Boll saying a little collateral damage is okay, so long as those nasty immigrants suffer?

Whatever the case, Citizen Vigilante is an awful film, even by Boll’s subterranean standards. Narratively vapid, technically inept and morally repugnant, this one doesn’t even qualify as so-bad-it’s-good...save for a hilarious sex scene where Sanders stops mid-coitus to complain about mold on the walls.

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTE - Costas Mandylor on Uwe Boll, where the actor spends two minutes gushing how brave and ballsy the director is.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By writer-director Uwe Boll.