Why the Media Won't Touch a Movie That Multiple Millions Are Watching

"Citizen Vigilante" Shakes Up Europe

It’s hard not to find the good in a movie “dedicated to the thousand of rape and murder victims in Europe who were betrayed by our legal system.” The primary good in this film is its in-your-face message to European authorities. Citizen Vigilante has put them on notice that tens of millions of their frustrated citizens are ready for vigilante justice.

Although widely banned throughout Europe, Elon Musk has made Citizen Vigilante available for free through X. Some 20 million people watched in the first 24 hours alone. Said Musk to his critics, “Murderous migrants beheading innocent people in their home town is what’s making people angry, not ‘social media’!” Directed by German filmmaker Uwe Boll, the film stars American actor Armie Hammer, largely blacklisted in Hollywood over #MeToo accusations.

The grandson of Soviet Agent Armand Hammer, Armie played the title role in the Lone Ranger

Citizen Vigilante provides many of the same visceral thrills as did the 5-movie Death Wish series starring Charles Bronson, The difference is that Bronson was a more inclusive killer. He killed bad guys regardless of their race, creed, and color albeit in such proportions as not to alarm the PC police.

The protagonist in Citizen Vigilante, played by Hammer, is singularly dedicated to solving Europe’s immigration problem. He focuses on “Islamic extremists” and the “blind-sided woke left” who enabled them. His victims include rapists and judges alike. He also takes out an entire SWAT team, which makes it hard for me, the son of a cop, to endorse the film.

The protagonist, Sanders by name, is an American businessman and former West Pointer who is more Jack Reacher than Jeff Bezos. Set loose in an unnamed European city [actually, Zagreb], Sanders recoils at the sheepishness of the citizens in the face of a “hostile takeover.”

“If you do nothing, I have to do something,” Sanders tells them in a cryptic communication. “I do this for you until you learn to do it for yourself.“ In the most memorable scene, the one that has totally freaked out the Left, Sanders avenges the gang rape of a European girl by killing her seven rapists as well as the Syrian family that harbored one of the seven.

Film fans will recall that Don Corleone would have been more precise in his application of justice. When the undertaker Bonasera asks him to kill the men who attacked his daughter, the Don replies, “That is not justice; your daughter is still alive,” Sanders has no such code. He strides manfully across the European landscape dispensing justice as he sees fit.

Therein lies a problem for the American viewer. As a character, Sanders is more Germanic than American, a Nietzschean superman without the homespun conscience of a Clark Kent. Like the strong men of European tradition—Hitler, Mussolini, Putin—he emerges out of chaos to restore order. In the process, he takes what he wants, (including totally gratuitous sex with a prostitute).

On the right, we distrust our political leaders, but we have confidence in the historic constitutional order. Sanders does not. “They never meant to give you justice,” he says of Europe’s institutions. “They only exist to control you. I am here to give you that control back.”

That said, the movie ends on a vaguely hopeful note. The one man who survives the SWAT team slaughter, a sensible Interpol chief, is tasked by Sanders with spreading his message. “You end this,” Sanders tells him of the woke-Islamic takeover, “or we will end this ourselves.”

“I need to speak to the prime minister,” says the hospitalized chief to an assistant. “If she won’t talk to me, find every member of the press and bring them to me.” It would be swell if the odd Eurocrat on seeing this film would respond with the same urgency, but I wouldn’t count on that. Their challenge, as they see it, is to silence Elon Musk.