it's shit, but a hit

See my review of Citizen Vigilante here.

Germany's ban of this movie has predictably activated the Streisand Effect, i.e., the movie became even more popular once it had achieved forbidden-fruit status. Never mind that the plot contains nonsensical elements and poor characterization; banning the film just makes people more desirous to see it. And the usual circle of rightie YouTube critics, while being circumspect in talking about the film's artistic, uh, merits, have generally been positive about the overall message, and about how German director Uwe Boll truly went there. The film features a lot of death, but its high points are two massacres, one of the police and one of an illegal-immigrant family. I'm not going to tell you what to feel about that; in my review, my only remark was that the actors—some or many of whom are not Muslim—had to have been good sports to be involved in the making of this movie.

Director Uwe Boll is on record as saying he wants to see the movie shared, but not via piracy. Part of me wonders whether he personally believes any of the movie's ideological rhetoric. Or is this just a cynical cash grab preying on the anti-illegal Zeitgeist? If it's a cash grab, then maybe it's good that someone uploaded the full film to X. I do feel bad for the actors, though. For them, this is just work, and if their film has been pirated, it's not making the cast and crew any money. But whether the movie's been purchased or pirated, the discussion around it is more interesting than the movie itself.

UPDATE: Uwe Boll uploaded his movie to X himself for a day or two. It's there only temporarily. I stand corrected.