Standard Vigilanate Fare
Summary
There isn’t anything subtle about Citizen Vigilante like most vigilante movies, but if like me you do enjoy them then this has some graphic kills and entertaining moments despite its questionable message.
Plot: A man takes justice into his own hands, hunting down criminals. His vigilante crusade makes him a social media star but puts him at odds with the local police chief.
Review: You may have noticed that I haven’t posted much lately aside from a few trailers, but I have been in the process of moving house. I am now settled in and can start focusing on the site again and will resume livestreams soon too. I’m excited to be back with a new review for the much talked about Citizen Vigilante from director Uwe Boll.
Critics have destroyed the film much like they did with Death Wish back in the 70’s claiming it’s anti-this and anti-that. Death Wish was about an architect pushed too far in New York which was not a nice place to live back then.
Citizen Vigilante has Armie Hammer play an American vigilante living in Europe called Sanders who is fed up with criminals getting away with their misdeeds, so he decides to take justice into his own hands. The film isn’t subtle about it’s anti-illegal migrant message with Sanders preaching to the camera at regular intervals about getting ordinary citizens to rise up against a growing problem. I don’t live in Europe so I can’t tell you if the situation is as bad as the film states, so I’m just judging it as as movie in itself.
Citizen Vigilante doesn’t do much that’s new with the genre and yet I still enjoy it because I love vigilante stories. The problem here is that Sanders isn’t remotely likeable or sympathetic especially when he murders rooms full of police. We’re meant to see that he is flawed individual, so we question whether what he does makes him as bad as the other criminals which is your standard vigilante movie trope.
Armie brings a calculated coldness to Sanders and he is merciless on his victims; at times you cheer him on especially with the 3 youths on the bus who get their comeuppance later on.
There are plenty of graphic kills with one highlight being a guy getting his face blown off which will definitely be sore in the morning. We get a few shoot-outs and explosions to keep things moving too.
At just under 90 minutes Citizen Vigilante is mostly well paced, but by the end the message seems to be to murder anyone the police don’t bring to justice, so you can take from that what you will.
I did like that there is a judge character whose name is Judge Reinhold which got a laugh out of me.
Overall, Citizen Vigilante is your typical genre fare with some moments of graphic violence and a few decent kills. I’m not quite sure how to feel about its message as I don’t live in Europe, so I’m just taking it as a movie. In that regard it’s entertaining enough with Armie Hammer making for an interesting protagonist who isn’t sympathetic like say, Paul Kersey was. Personally, you’re better just watching Death Wish 3 again as we all know that movie is just plain awesome.