Citizen Vigilante: review

Armie Hammer as Sanders

2026's Citizen Vigilante is directed by trash filmmaker Uwe Boll (of the critically panned House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, and BloodRayne) and stars Armie Hammer as Sanders, an ex-military man who has come to Europe on an "extended vacation" to take over his father's business after the man's passing. This business apparently involves the management and upkeep of numerous properties in Central Europe (the plot takes place in an unnamed country but is probably Slovenia), but the upshot is that Sanders doesn't lack for money. While in Europe, and for reasons never quite made known to us, Sanders becomes personally disgusted with the European justice system's failure to prosecute illegal-immigrant criminals who randomly gang-rape and murder native European women, then get let off by lenient judges. Sanders goes on a vigilante campaign, basically becoming this movie's low-rent version of Batman, using his gigantic arsenal of weaponry, quasi-evolved stealth tactics, and video presence to begin a terror campaign against those who escaped justice in the slow-moving court system, as well as against the judges who let these criminals back on the street. Social-media reactions to Sanders—the ones shown, anyway—are universally positive: "We need someone like this in Germany" or "We need someone like this in Italy" or "I want to marry that guy." For his part, Sanders mosaicks out his own face and alters his voice when he makes his videos, and his repeated refrain to Europeans is: "Remember: I do this for you until you learn to do this for yourself." Meanwhile, Sanders is being chased by Chief Henry of Interpol (Costas Mandylor), who sympathizes with the victims but is determined to bring the "citizen vigilante" down. From Chief Henry's point of view, vigilantes bring only chaos and societal ruin—an ironic attitude given that allowing criminals to escape punishment, then letting them back out on the street, also brings only chaos and societal ruin. In a weird way, if we take this to be the film's true subtext, then the story—which comes off as right-wing agitprop—might actually be more evenhanded than it first appears.

But I can't hide my opinion: This was a shit movie, all in all. Some of the action scenes carried a certain amount of visceral satisfaction, but other scenes, from the first random murder of a mother in front of her son to the scene in which Sanders massacres a bunch of police officers (an act that I was sure would seal his fate), were ridiculous in setup and extremely poorly edited. Dainty little bullet spatters were intercut with incongruously graphic gore. In the police-massacre scene, for example, most of the officers die from what appears to be small-arms fire; they're taken down by two machine guns spitting rounds at them. But the camera suddenly and bizarrely takes a moment to focus on one officer's face right as it's blown off (you read that right—his face gets blown off) by something much, much larger than a small-arms round. So where did that round come from?

All of the characters in this unnamed Central European country speak English except for one Middle-Eastern family near the end, which is shown engaging in conversation at least partly in Arabic. Police-radio traffic is all in English, and while the police cars have the non-English Policija label on their outsides, when the SWAT team is storming what they think is the vigilante's compound, the officers' jackets all have the English initialism SWAT on them. (Or, hey, maybe that's how it is in Central Europe!)

The movie's dialogue is so on-the-nose that Sanders, who has a tendency to speechify before killing his victims, often sounds as though he's rattling off a set of right-wing talking points. These sorts of right-wing indie productions almost all tend to be overtly preachy in some way, and that didactic tone is usually their downfall. Perhaps in an attempt to seem balanced, the movie's script has Sanders sneer at both Democrat and Republican presidents—including Trump—for not being personally brave enough to stand at the front lines of the immigration war themselves, doing what needs to be done. But despite the attempt at balance, the movie clearly leans in favor of an anti-illegal-immigrant agenda.

If nothing else comes through, the movie is perfectly clear about its politics. It could have won more hearts and minds, though, with better scripting and characterization, and a more balanced viewpoint. I would like to have learned what triggering event had turned Sanders into a vigilante. I would like to have seen Sanders get emotional about something that reminded him of his painful past—maybe something from his army days. I would like to have seen Sanders and Chief Henry meet face to face and have a real sit-down, a clash of ideologies playing like an angrily aggressive Socratic dialogue. After all of Sanders's video messages to the people of Europe, I would definitely like to have seen clusters and crowds of Europeans taking justice into their own hands and clawing back their streets and countries. I also wouldn't have minded seeing some realistically European reactions to the cheeky American vigilante who presumes to tell Europe its business instead of the nearly self-righteous paternalism that we get from Sanders. In the real world, social-media reactions to Sanders would not be universally positive; replies would be angry, and quite a few would involve gaslighting. All that said, most of the actors are very good in their roles, including Armie Hammer, who plays Sanders with deadpan seriousness.

This is definitely not a Hollywood movie. It's way too un-PC. To its credit, the movie follows its own weird vision, and it definitely goes there; when white-boy Sanders starts killing people, he kills everybody, including that entire, aforementioned Middle-Eastern family. So: plenty of brown and black people in the body count. Quite a few white people, too, in the form of cops and several crime-lenient judges. Basically: liberals.

While I consider myself right of center, I can't say that I recommend this movie. Parts of its agenda, when it does present a coherent argument, are items I can agree with. But overall, the movie is so ham-handed in terms of editing, so poorly written in terms of story and characterization, and so vague in terms of what the real issues are that I would simply say, to my leftie and rightie friends alike: Give this one a pass. It's not worth your time. Go watch The Equalizer 3. That's a much more entertaining vigilante film. But hey, if you're European, watch the movie with a group of your friends for the comedic value of having an American—from a country with its own problems—trying to tell Europeans how to solve their internal problems. Mind you, I don't think the Sanders character is completely wrong, but I think the way the movie sets up the entire situation is just ludicrous. All in all, this movie was the misbegotten, unserious rightie version of the left-biased and equally unserious Don't Look Up.

__________

ADDENDUM: I somehow got through the review without mentioning Armie Hammer's troubled personal life, which has kept him out of movies for several years. Hammer got #MeToo'ed with several accusations of assault some years back, but I think there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute him. For an actor, though, just wearing the scarlet letter is enough to tarnish one's reputation, and Hammer has admitted to a certain level of BDSM kink in his sexual life, which is probably not something anyone should publicly admit to if they want to appear professional in serious circles. I don't know any details, though, so I won't cast any judgment on Hammer and his... esoteric preferences.