Joe Does “Citizen Vigilante”
By Mitch Berg
I’ve got a piece coming up in the next few days at “Hot Air” on the movie “Citizen Vigilante”. I’m going to hold off on my opinions here until that comes out.
But Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, sends us his review:
I watched the much-hyped Citizen Vigilante movie. Not great. Looks like a college film class project – random flashbacks, choppy scenes, wooden dialogue. SPOILERS:
Here’s the set-up: The vigilante (not named so I’m going to call him V instead of typing the word every time) is a rich American, about 35 years old, white, male, fit, no mention of wife or kids. His mother died when he was young. His father shipped him off to boarding school so father could concentrate on the business, only saw each other twice a year at holidays. V eventually graduated from West Point and spent time in the military. Dad died, V inherited the business, thousands of units of rental property.
All of that explains why he’s such a cold-heart bastard who knows how to use a firearm, and has an overdeveloped sense of justice, and has time and money to spend. Good so far.
Of course, the film makers don’t spit it out as I have. Those background facts are revealed in dribbles and flashbacks. Very confusing.
The rental units are in Europe. V enters the country illegally – no explanation why – and acquires/brings in a boatload of firearms – no explanation how – and begins killing immigrants who have wronged European women. The immigrants definitely need killing, no argument there. One woman had her throat slit in broad daylight by a random stranger, one was gang raped by half a dozen teenagers, one was beaten into a coma for no reason. White European women, North African immigrants, that part is realistic.
The women are victims not only of their attackers, but also the “justice system” which sympathizes with the attackers because society hasn’t given immigrants enough help adjusting to our ways, some of which are against their religion anyway, and besides, the women were asking for it. The attackers get lawyers and bail and social workers and endless continuances, the victims get forced to relive the trauma and called liars.
For sure, I’m on V’s side there – some people just need killing, and maybe their families, too (thinking of the Henry Nowak case in Britain, where an immigrant stabbed an 18-year-old and filmed him dying, the immigrant’s mother took the knife and hid it, the immigrant’s brother made up a story telling the police the stabbed kid attacked the brother in a racially motivated attack, the cops believed the family and when the kid claimed to have been stabbed, the cop said, “I don’t think you have, mate” as the kid bled out and died. Yeah, that whole family can go).
So V decides to do something. It’s not personal, like Bronson in Death Wish. He’s setting an example, trying to motivate people. He does a bunch of blurred screen videos (half-hearted attempt to disguise his face but not his voice) which somehow get on TV – not explained how – giving long speeches claiming the system is corrupt, people are misled, they need to take back power over their lives. He’s an internet sensation – people all over the world love him – and the news media does their usual furrowed brow pondering why he’s popular when he’s such a racist. Again, I have no objection to the substance of his speech, only the way it’s done in the film. In real life, he’d never get on TV or the internet – he’d be banned instantly, nobody would ever hear or see him. Like the manifesto of every spree killer is instantly suppressed so we have no idea why they did it.
Some of the attackers can be identified from court records. V tracks them down and shoots them. For some reason, he kills a couple of bleeding heart judges by faking suicides instead of just shooting them. No explanation why. If they’re all part of the same social rot, and subject to the same ultimate cure, should they all die in the same method? Wouldn’t that be a more effective message/motivator than hiding the punishment as suicide?
V did some other stupid stuff, too. There are two guys flirting with two women in a bar. The women go to the bathroom together, the guys order shots of liquor and use an eyedropper to put something in the women’s drinks. V sitting at the bar having his own drink sees it, distracts the guys, switches their drinks, the guys pass out, V tells the women what just happened, they all leave. Why interfere? Why draw attention to yourself? White-knighting is risky. His actions are observed by an Interpol agent who picks up V’s glass from the bar with a cloth and presumably takes it for fingerprints. Why? What’s the Interpol crime of foiling the rape plot?
Now that Interpol has the fingerprints, they get V’s identity but don’t release it to the public, they somehow track him to a house and move in to arrest. About five minutes of dramatic music as cops load weapons, drive armored personnel carriers through the streets, climb up the stairs single file behind the shield guy, breach the door and storm into the house. It’s completely empty except for a giant cube made of plate steel that has two firing slits facing the room and two AK-47s sticking out. Rather than fall back or take cover, the cops line up in a straight line across the room facing the box and shoot at it. Naturally, there are no ricochets but their pathetic 9mm rounds don’t penetrate, either. V gives them a warning to leave, which obviously they won’t, so he opens fire, killing a dozen cops. That was weird, too. It’s a European country but all the cops’ uniforms say POLICE and SWAT. Maybe that’s just for American audiences, doesn’t matter, the cops in the room all die. The Interpol officer – the bar glass lifter – is behind a sheetrock wall so he’s completely safe from all of V’s rifle rounds, don’t penetrate a bit. The officer gets a backup team, they mill around the room looking horrified at their dead comrades, then cut their way into the steel box, it’s empty. There’s a trap door in the floor. V must have escaped that way.
Now I axe ya – would you grab that handle and lift the trap door lid? After all the cops’ V’s killed? Knowing his military background? Or would you think, “Gee, I wonder if it’s booby-trapped?” That was my first thought but it never entered the cops’ minds. They yank up the lid, the explosive goes off, the cops inside the box are incinerated and everyone in the room (including our glass lifter) is slammed into the walls, critically injured or dead.
Big climax is when V goes to the apartment of one of the gang rapists, forces his way inside with a silenced pistol, shoots the boy in the leg to convince Dad, Mom and Sister to sit down and shut up. Big lecture about justice, family pushing back that they shouldn’t have to give up their religion and the way the girl was dressed made the boys horny so she wanted/deserved to be raped. Nice scene showing the whole family has no intention of assimilating, they were in it together, and all deserve to die. Although I wonder that the leg wound doesn’t hurt after the first few seconds.
V then tells the boy to call his rapist buddies to come over right now, tells them his lawyer is here, there’s new information they must know. As the buddies arrive, V shoots them and the rapist family, too. News footage of the bodies being hauled out of the apartment is on TV, watched by the rape victim, who cries tears of joy.
People say the film is banned because of gratuitous violence. Hardly. Didn’t they ever watch John Wick?
It could have been a great movie. It’s not. But one positive note – it’s already banned in a couple of countries because it speaks truth about migrant crime. Elon put it on X which is where I watched it. News media are horrified that truth is being spoken. So it might do some good.
Joe Doakes
I agree with Joe on some parts. There could be, and needs to be, a really good movie about what happens when the rule of law becomes a social engineering tool. It’s something I’ve talked about on SITD many times in the past. More later this week.
