I rarely toot my own horn because I am rarely right, but long ago in an article I wrote for Bleeding Fool, I predicted that, given the current state of crime in cities, we were on the cusp of a vigilante movie revival. But I would be hard-pressed to admit that I thought Uwe Boll would begin the renaissance.

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I have yet to watch Citizen Vigilante, (watch it free until 10am eastern today) and I plan on doing a review this weekend, but the premise is as simple as a vigilante movie should be.

A man takes justice into his own hands, hunting down criminals. His vigilante crusade turns him into a social media sensation while putting him at odds with law enforcement and drawing the attention of dangerous enemies.

 

Personally, I love vigilante movies. I’ve written several Toxic Masculinity Tuesday articles about men taking justice into their own hands; Death Wish 3, Dead Man’s Shoes, The Exterminator, and Death Sentence.

 

The popularity of vigilante movies ebbs and flows. When crime is rampant, as they were in various cities in the 70s and 80s, there was a rise in vigilante movies that became popular such as, Dirty Harry (1971), Death Wish (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), Walking Tall (1973), Rolling Thunder (1977), The Exterminator (1980), Vigilante (1983), Gordon’s War (1973) etc, all were born during those tumultuous decades when ordinary people wanted to be saved from the crime that surrounded and terrorized their neighborhoods with impunity.  It didn’t take much analysis on my part to predict that, as we live in the soft-on-crime age, creators would return to the genre.

 

 

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And the genre was not specific to America. Europe had their own wave of vigilante movies. However, given their revulsion of guns, their vigilante movies were more in the vein of revenge fantasies. Dead Man’s Shoes that I wrote about is a revenge fantasy set in Britain about a war veteran seeking revenge for the brutal act against his handicapped brother. They also had Get Carter (1971), The Old Gun (1975), and others that came out later, like Harry Brown (2009), and The Limey (1999). All movies that sought revenge for a slight against their family, but that hasn’t stopped Boll’s Citizen Vigilante from facing controversy.

 

 

Germany, where Uwe Boll is from and takes inspiration for the events of the film, has essentially banned the movie from being viewed by using a loophole that amounts to censorship. From what has been reported, the FSK says the film propagates vigilante justice and incites violence against migrants, but those designations only scratch the surface. Bol’s film shines a light on migrant crime in Germany, as the Brussels Signal states:

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It draws inspiration from real German cases, including a 2016 Hamburg gang rape in which perpetrators received lenient sentences and some media coverage expressed sympathy for them. The story also criticises elements of the justice system for leniency toward offenders.

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To censor Citizen Vigilante, the FSK has refused to give the movie a rating. Without a rating, Citizen Vigilante cannot be sold physically, or streamed anywhere in Germany.  Basically proving Boll’s point for him.

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However, since Barbra Streisand is an American curse, the FSK may not have been aware of the Streisand Effect. Citizen Vigilante has been released in the U.S. and Canada, and the ban has only made the buzz around the movie stronger. Just a search on YouTube will bring up a string of reviews and commentary discussing not just the quality, but the events that inspired the movie. By attempting to silence the movie’s criticism of migrant crime against native Europeans, the FSK and the German government has only shined a spotlight on the crime they tried to cover up.

 

At this point, it doesn’t matter whether Citizen Vigilante is a good movie or not.  Mainstream pop culture outlets have already begun skewering the movie as far right propaganda and a shameless grift, but that will not matter either. What matters is that Uwe Boll has kicked open the door to a return of the vigilante movie.

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Most people don’t remember that Death Wish wasn’t critically acclaimed when it came out as well, with critics saying such things as Vincent Canby from The New York Times calling it irresponsible and tacky, while Roger Ebert called it a quasifascist advertisement for private gun ownership, and propaganda for vigilante justice. Yet, Death Wish became a cultural phenomenon because it tapped into the public’s fear and vulnerability they felt during skyrocketing crime in their cities.

 

 ‍As I’ve stated before, I still have not watched Citizen Vigilante. While I love Uwe Boll’s House of the Dead as a guilty pleasure movie, I do not expect anything close to the quality of Death Wish or any of its sequels. But again, it doesn’t matter. Citizen Vigilante has not only returned the vigilante genre to the spotlight, but will allow them to be based on the violent crimes perpetrated by migrants on native citizens that local governments inexplicably want to conceal from their public.

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With the way Citizen Vigilante’s fame has spread along the internet like wildfire, expect to see a glut of new movies based on ordinary citizens taking matters into their own hands. It’s only human nature that if people feel they can’t receive justice from their government, they will dream of meting out justice on their own.

If you missed the free showing on X, you can watch Citizen Vigilante now on Prime Video. 

Originally Published here

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