Interview with Uwe Boll on Politics, Hollywood and His New Film, Citizen Vigilante

It’s been a while since the gatekeepers of Hollywood allowed adults to see films that might upset them. They’re okay with extreme violence or exhibitionist sex, as long as the moral compass points in the correct direction. The “Woke Code,” like the Hays Code, demands compliance, such that a film like Uwe Boll’s Citizen Vigilante would be seen as offensive because taking the side of the people who oppose mass migration would be, to Hollywood and the righteous mob online, racist.

And that is what defines a counterculture: one that is, by its nature, offensive to the status quo, and Citizen Vigilante is that. It also happens to be my favorite kind of thriller - clean, lean, and mean. It offers little in the way of redemption for its antagonist. He has, to a degree, sold his soul to the Devil in order to enact vigilante justice. Life will have to be cheap and humans expendable.

Boll hasn’t made a film in four years, and now he’s back with a vengeance and with a film that is as unapologetically political as he is. He decided not to pull punches but instead to go full force in the most dangerous direction.

Boll is known in the Film Twitter world for being the guy who boxed and fought with film critics way back when. Whatever it is that makes up his personality has made him suited for this moment in 2026, when artists with any real courage are in short supply. He is willing to put himself out there, to touch the live wire and ask the audience to decide for itself what to think.

Armie Hammer stars as a guy who is mad as hell and isn’t going to take it anymore. He’s had enough of the soft language of politicians, the lack of action from law enforcement, and the way so many people tiptoe around the controversial issue of mass migration.

In the film, Hammer decides to take justice into his own hands and punish the lawbreakers himself. They range from teenagers refusing to pay a fare on a bus, to those same teenagers robbing someone in the park, to men attempting to drug and rape women, and to the rampant rape crimes by migrants in Europe.

Boll does not sugar-coat the issue. If anything, there are scenes where the killer goes too far and ends up killing innocents because by then, it’s hard to tell the difference between who deserves it and who doesn’t, and why. He’s pushed himself to the limit and now sees humanity as too stupid to protect itself, even in life-threatening situations.

Armie Hammer is the best he’s ever been in this role. He was chewed up and spit out by Hollywood on what ultimately turned out to be fake accusations by a woman who essentially pursued him, slept with him, and then turned on him when he rejected her. I don’t know all of the details except that he was put on trial for kinky sex as opposed to any kind of sexual assault.

So it’s interesting he’s cast here as a vigilante hunting down rapists and sex offenders. Not all. Some are criminals - white collar and street - who will never be caught or held accountable by law enforcement. In a sense, you get the feeling that Armie Hammer has been brought to an emotional point where he has nothing to lose, much like the character himself. He’s been taught a hard lesson about the film industry and the public, leaving him with a harder edge that works well for this character.

The subject of violence against immigrants is what the Left will jump all over, and the film will be written off as a “racist screed.” But it’s not quite that simple, not if you pay close attention to the movie and the character. He is embodying the collective rage of communities who are at their wits’ end with so much politeness covering up brutal crimes. What then must they do?

The victims are left to twist in the wind lest they too be seen as “racist.” If Citizen Vigilante makes any point, it screams that point loud and clear. Why are they ignored by the government and law enforcement? Because the fear of being seen as racist outweighs the desire to warn or protect the citizenry.

It is the wrongness of our current system that seems to set off the main character more so than his being a guy who wants to, for example, save lives. We’ve seen plenty of political vigilante movies, like Billy Jack, which would be considered “woke” by today’s standards.

There’s also Dirty Harry, of course, which was controversial for the time and called “fascist” by Pauline Kael.

Citizen Vigilante is what I would call subversive counterculture in the same way. It offends, but it excites. It takes real-world anxieties and turns them into a fantasy. That also means, as with other films with violence, like Taxi Driver:

Or Joker:

It will be accused of and blamed for any kind of violence we might see against migrants or illegal immigrants. And will be accused of inciting violence. It’s that age-old argument about whether art should be held responsible for people's behavior.

But really, considering the rhetoric coming from the Left on this, there hasn’t been widespread violence as they might have predicted long ago. If anything, the violence has come from their side.

Citizen Vigilante will play in select theaters on June 19th, but will then find its way to streaming. Check it out. In the meantime, I spoke with Uwe Boll for a little over an hour. If you’d like to watch that interview, it’s here: