A Movie Too Dangerous to See

German regulators wouldn’t issue an age rating for ‘Citizen Vigilante’ until Elon Musk put it on X for free.

By Dominic Green

Armie Hammer in a scene from Uwe Boll’s ‘Citizen Vigilante.’ Photo: bollfilms.com

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The big movie of the summer, Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” is a saga of revenge and return. So is the surprise hit of the summer, the German director Uwe Boll’s “Citizen Vigilante.”

Mr. Nolan is a cinematic artist, the choreographer of balletic violence in acclaimed movies such as “Tenet” and “Dunkirk.” Mr. Boll is a cynical schlockmeister, best known for adaptations of video games. One of his turkeys, “Alone in the Dark,” was nominated for two Golden Raspberries (worst director and worst actress) and won three Stinkers (worst picture, worst director and least “special” effects) in 2005, and is considered one of the worst films ever made. “The film on your teeth after a three-day drunk possesses more cinematic value,” wrote Scott Brown for Entertainment Weekly.

Mr. Boll claims that Germany’s state movie regulator initially refused to issue an age rating for his latest film, “Citizen Vigilante.” No rating, no public screenings in Germany. Mr. Boll calls this “deliberate censorship” and claims the rating was withheld because the movie “was inciting violence against migrants.” The regulators only granted the film a rating after Elon Musk allowed users of his X website, including in Germany, to watch it for free. There’s no better publicity than censorship and scandal. The so-called Streisand effect sent it to the top of Amazon’s and Apple’s streaming charts.

“Citizen Vigilante” is a nasty piece of work. Revenge movies usually are. The pretext of their righteous violence is that bad people force a reasonable man to mete out rough justice because women have been violated: Dustin Hoffman’s nerdy mathematician in Sam Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs” (1971), Charles Bronson’s selfless doctor in Michael Winner’s “Death Wish” (1974), and the recent sequence of movies in which Liam Neeson’s benign everyman discovers a latent talent for dispatching villains with his bare hands.

One of the numerous pretexts in “Citizen Vigilante” was supplied by a real-life case from Hamburg in 2016 that appalled Germans and made global headlines. Four teenage boys gang raped a 14-year-old girl while a fifth boy filmed the crime and issued instructions like a movie director. They left her for dead in freezing temperatures. One of the youths received a four-year prison sentence. The others walked free with suspended sentences. The judge felt that they had repented and no longer represented a danger to society.

In “Citizen Vigilante,” Armie Hammer plays an ex-U.S. Army officer now living in Europe. When the state fails to prevent or punish migrant crime, Mr. Hammer’s character takes the law into his own hands, often with the approval of the victims, who know that they have no other recourse. His executees include a judge who released a gang of juvenile rapists. As he evades an Interpol detective, he releases clips on social media, justifying his crimes and exhorting their emulation. He tells his pursuer that if European governments fail to act, then the people will.

“Citizen Vigilante” makes “Death Wish” look like “Citizen Kane.” But if quality were all that mattered for a film to come to market, then Hollywood would have closed up shop a long time ago. Nor, in our jaded times, does the possible risk of emulation usually lead to censorial reactions. German regulators certified Fatih Akin’s “The Golden Glove” (2019), a grisly film about a real-life serial killer who preyed on women in 1970’s Hamburg. The Motion Picture Association of America sanctioned the release of Spike Lee’s “Summer of Sam” (1999) and David Fincher’s “Zodiac” (2007), both of which were about actual serial killing sprees.

German regulators’ problem with “Citizen Vigilante” wasn’t its depiction of unspeakable acts, but their unmentionable perpetrators. For years, European governments did their best to deny that mass immigration, notably from majority-Muslim societies, correlated to documented rises in the number of sexual crimes, especially gang rape. We like to think of the arts as our conscience, pushing social problems to our attention. If Europeans must rely on cinéastes of Mr. Boll’s caliber to depict Europe’s current problems, it’s because no one else wants to admit their nature and extent.

Mr. Boll has illuminated the crisis of political legitimacy and social order that is rapidly unraveling Europe’s peace. His film was censored to keep the peace. That shows the severity of the continent’s crisis, and the fragility of Europe’s peace.

Mr. Green is a Journal contributor and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.