In Citizen Vigilante, Armie Hammer returns to the screen as Sanders, a former American military operative who is now living in an unnamed European country.  The people in the country are terrified because the country has been flooded with violent refugees and the liberal judges and the ineffective police and the corrupt government can’t or won’t keep anyone safe.  Sanders makes it his mission to mete out justice.

When he sees a group of arrogant young people refusing to pay to ride the bus, he pays for their ticket and then shows their leader that he has a gun.  He explains how one person refusing to pay leads to everyone else having to pay more.

When he visits with a prostitute, he is disgusted to see that the building she works in has mold.  Sanders is especially upset because his company owns the building.  Sanders say that people have to start doing the right thing.  Then he pays a woman for sex.

When a judge allows a group of rapists to go free because they’re struggling to “integrate into society,” Sanders drugs the judge and slits his wrists.

Sanders goes to the office of his father’s company and orders the any of his tenants who aren’t paying their rent should be immediately evicted.  It’s explained that the government won’t allow Sanders to immediately evict anyone.  In fact, the government wants Sanders to hand over his open units so that they can be used to house migrants.  Sanders says that he’ll talk to the tenants himself.  Uh-oh.

When the cops come looking for Sanders, he blows them up.

Sanders kills an innocent motorist in order to make a point about how people are scared to break the law.  Wait, what?  This is our hero?

Sanders kills a lot of people.  He’s the Citizen Vigilante.  He sends out distorted videos of himself in which he rambles about Nietzsche and justice.  The fact that he sends out visually distorted videos would seem to suggest that he’s trying to hide his identity but he also spends almost the entire film wearing the exact same outfit and making no attempt to disguise his appearance while out in public.  Interpol is determined to catch him but the average citizen, the people being victimized by “woke liberalism” (to quote Sanders), love him.

Lord help us.  It’s 2026 and otherwise reasonable people are currently debating the merits of a Uwe Boll film.  For all the talk about how this film is politically incorrect and right-wing, it’s really not that much different from Boll’s Assault on Wall Street.  Both Assault on Wall Street and Citizen Vigilante are crude, heavy-handed films that capture the fantasies of people who currently feel powerless.  Assault on Wall Street was designed to appeal to the Resistance morons, the same people who would later insist that Luigi Mangione’s vapid manifesto was a call for revolution.  Citizen Vigilante is designed to appeal to the most simple-minded of the populists.  Running through both Citizen Vigilante and Assault on Wall Street is a contempt for anything that reeks of “the system.”  Both films are fueled less by politics and more by paranoia.  Germany made the mistake of banning Citizen Vigilante, which just added more fuel to a fire that would have otherwise burned itself out.

Citizen Vigilante opens with a scene of shocking violence.  It’s one of the more effective moments in the film, largely because it captures the randomness of modern crime.  It’s also one of the few scenes not to feature Armie Hammer.  One can make the argument that Armie Hammer was treated unfairly when he was canceled.  (I mean, there are people out there who still think that Hammer is a cannibal!)  Before his career collapsed, Hammer was a busy actor.  His piercing eyes and his deep voice made him ideal for both heroes and villains.  Citizen Vigilante has been touted as Hammer’s comeback, or at least it was until it was actually released.  Hammer wanders through the film in almost zombie-like trance, refusing to show a hint of emotion.  Every time he speaks, the deepness of his voice only reminds of how shallow the character (and the film) really is.  The film works best when its lead character and actor are nowhere to be seen.

Citizen Vigilante is crude.  Is it effective?  Occasionally.  Like most revenge films, it gets at the type of primal thoughts that a lot of people pretend not to have.  That said, Uwe Boll is not a good director.  Uwe Boll is an interesting media presence.  I respect the fact that, when he challenged his critics to a boxing match, he actually followed through and knocked most of them out.  I imagine there are many directors who are envious of that.  But, as a filmmaker, Boll has never shown much skill or concern when its come to concepts like pacing, continuity, or getting the best out of his actors.  Citizen Vigilante is a slow film that’s built around a character who registers as a big blank.  It’s neither as dangerous nor as revolutionary as you may have heard.  In the end, it’s just another film about people getting shot, blown up, and stabbed.  I imagine that some scenes will achieve a second life on YouTube.  That’s just the way of the world nowadays.  But the film itself will be forgotten in a few months.

Wow.  I just watched and reviewed a Uwe Boll film.  I should get hazard pay.