Citizen Vigilante Review

Citizen Vigilante is terribly made, terribly edited, and terribly scored.

But it does, at least, stand up for free speech. 

It’s made by the godfather of B-movie trainwrecks, Uwe Boll and strs Armie Hammer as Sanders, an American living somewhere in Europe, looking after his property empire, and also taking on a brand of vigilante justice.

The targets are migrants who have come to Europe illegally and who are now committing crimes without fear of reprisal. Except, in some cases, the targets are homegrown Europeans with brown faces and white faces too. Anyone can get it, if they’re a

bit naughty, including judges. 

WHat’s hilarious is that Sanders is the biggest crook of all, amassing a body count that would make Trevor from GTA V blush, and even killing people who aren’ttargets. In one, amazingly laughable scene, he demonstrates how rigidly people adhere to the rule of law by driving down the wrong side of the road, causing someone to crash, and preusmably die. 

Cue a fireball. I kid you not.

Yet Sanders also seems to think that people should adhere to the law, so what’s the message exactly? Commit crimes when it concerns migrants but pay your rent on time? I mention this because Sanders is a stickler for rent, given that he owns properties throughout the unnamed country he’s in. Pay on time, or he’s coming for you.

His questionable moral compass is on full display throughout the film, as there are several scenes where he’s talking to a handheld camera, espousing his world view. 

All this questionable moralising is shown by way of Sanders talking to a handheld camera, which is then sent to the news with a voice and face modifier in place. But there are also other scenes intercut throughout the film where he’s talking to someone off camera, and it’s never clear who. 

52.00

I’m not sure if the explanation was left on the editing room floor, but one thing is clear, Citizen Vigilante is terribly edited, with lots of unpleasant choppiness in the action and a few instances where Sanders seems to be in three places at once.

For his part, Hammer does his best with the script, playing Sanders like a sort of zonked out frat boy who’s taken too much Xanax and needs a stiff line of coke. There are supporting cast members too, but they’re all just props. You have the Interpol agent who we know nothing about, and is only there to impart a vague sense of danger towards our antihero. We have the wayward youths, and the migrant criminals.

It’s the film’s stance on migration that’s making headlines.

The problem is that Citizen Vigilante is a very poor vehicle for the message. It’s badly made, it has wafer-thin character and, most crucially, Sanders simply doesn’t make sense as a character. He’s happy to let an innocent motorist die to make a point yet he thinks he has his finger on the pulse of justice. 

After 90 minutes, the first 30 of which I was mildly intrigued by, and the last hour which I found almost entirely insufferable, I came to a very simple conclusion: if a movie this bad is generatingi nterest, audiences are clearly starved for moviegoing experiences that dare to tackle taboo topics. 

I respect Citizen Vigilante for daring to have something to say, but you can’t escape that it’s very badly made. I dislike it for how it’s written, how it’s edited and even how it’s scored. The music, for instance, is extremely noticeable throughout the film - and that’s never a good thing. It’s always tonally off in some way. 

In the end, if a talented Hollywood director had the backing to make a movie with a message this provocative, audiences would go and see it. Of course, it would need some real characters, some actual subtlety, and a little bit of craft.

But Hollywood, for its part, seems mostly content to stick to diversity quotas, marvel movies and rom-com slop.

Which is sad. Because art is all about having something to say. Yet if Uwe Boll is our bastion for free speech, we’re in a very artistically bankrupt place indeed.