While movies about urban dwellers who take the law into their own hands predate 1974’s Death Wish, that one remains the modern template. In the same vein, we go to 2026’s Citizen Vigilante.

On the surface, Michael Sanders (Armie Hammer) appears to be an American businessman in Europe who lives a quiet existence. However, he “moonlights” as the man known as the “Vigilante Citizen”, a “crime-fighter” who takes over when he thinks the law fails.

Thanks to the videos he posts to depict his exploits, this makes Michael/”Vigilante” something of a folk hero among the masses. The authorities don’t take kindly to his crusade, though, and Interpol Regional Chief Henry (Costas Mandylor) tries to track down and halt Michael’s violent efforts.

Though essentially unknown among the masses, film buffs of a certain stripe enjoy awareness of Citizen writer/director Uwe Boll. This status exists due to the… problematic quality of his efforts.

Plug “worst film directors” into an Internet search bar. I guarantee you’ll see Boll’s name at or near the top of that list.

Miraculously, I seem to have avoided much experience with Boll’s catalog. I watched 2005’s BloodRayne years ago and indeed found it to offer a thoroughly terrible film.

Unless I blocked the memory of other Boll projects, it remained my only time with his work until Citizen found its way into my Blu-ray player. Thank heavens for small favors.

If Citizen offers evidence, it appears I didn’t miss anything in the 20 years since I watched BloodRayne. Like its predecessor – and apparently pretty much all Boll flicks – this becomes an incompetent affair.

Though Boll’s lack of talent as a filmmaker becomes the least of the worries here. Citizen becomes a right-wing fever dream packaged as a feature.

Want to know what kind of film to expect from Citizen? In its opening scene, a pretty blonde and white mother gets brutally stabbed in the neck by a Black undocumented immigrant as she walks home with her young son.

The film gives no context to this assault. The movie depicts the carnage in an almost comically graphic manner, as we see blood spurt from her neck to a Monty Python extreme.

Thus Boll makes his worldview clear from the get-go: non-white immigrants bad and a threat to proper white civilization. Granted, Citizen does extend Michael’s crusade to others, such as a long scene in which he takes down some scumbags who try to drug their dates.

These guys don’t fit the “unwashed illegals” theme that launches the story. Nonetheless, “non-white immigrants bad” remains the overriding concept at work here, one that Boll states repeatedly.

Citizen’s bigotry aside, it displays a bizarre perspective in how it confronts “justice”. The film clearly wants us to view Michael as a justified crusader who does what the law won’t.

This includes brutally murdering Interpol agents when they come to find him. A better film would at least offer some form of ambivalence about Michael’s actions.

Not here, though, as Citizen presents the slaughter of law enforcement as a positive. We don’t see this rampage as the unfortunate price Michael must pay to continue his necessary “line of work”.

No. Instead, as Boll depicts the violence via intensely graphic carnage, Citizen treats this as a) appropriate, b) justified and c) funny.

Whereas the movie’s score gives us an ominous and pulsing throb almost the entire way, it changes for Michael’s assault on Interpol. For that scene, the music adopts a jazzy and jaunty samba vibe.

The music implies the audience should find the brutal murder of law enforcement as comedic. Boll makes this one of the most tasteless scenes in movie history.

In an even nuttier vein, Citizen tells us that Michael himself is an undocumented immigrant! This becomes the definition of internal inconsistency.

Beyond the racism and the horrifying attempt to make the slaughter of law enforcement fully, Citizen simply brings an incompetent piece of work. At its core, it offers a cat and mouse in which Henry chases Michael while the latter continues to push his luck and ply his trade.

Boll can’t pull off this simple plot path in a coherent manner. The movie flits from one superfluous scene to another with zero consistency or logic as it builds toward… something.

Remember when Hammer seemed like the next big movie star? Thanks largely to some bad choices he made in his personal life, his career derailed in 2021 and he now seems stuck in lower budget projects as penance.

Though spotty, his “comeback” flick Frontier Crucible offered a decent Western. It looks like a classic compared to Citizen, however.

Hammer plays Michael as wooden and flat. He mistakes a bland lack of emotion as toughness and seems bland as can be.

Hammer also simply looks embarrassed the whole time. His eyes give off a vibe of “how did I fall so far?” as he finds himself trapped in dreck like this.

I could more easily forgive the atrocities of Citizen Vigilante if it simply offered basic filmmaking competence. However, it usually feels like a random collection of scenes linked by a vague narrative.

Much of the “story” makes little to no sense. As mentioned, Citizen Vigilante tells a simple story at its core, but Boll can’t pull it off in a manner that creates tension, drama or even basic coherence.

All of this leaves Citizen Vigilante as a cinematic disaster in all possible ways. A combination of incompetent filmmaking, bad performances and ugly politics, it becomes a painful viewing experience.

Citizen Vigilante appears in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Whatever one thinks of the film itself, it looked great on Blu-ray.

Sharpness seemed strong. Virtually no instances of softness marred the proceedings.

Neither jaggies nor shimmering impacted the presentation, and I saw no edge haloes. Source flaws remained absent.

The movie’s palette leaned toward blue, yellow, red and green. The colors felt well-rendered within those choices.

Blacks appeared deep and dense, while shadows felt clean and smooth. I found nothing about which to complain related to the picture quality.

Though not a bad mix, the flick’s Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack seemed mediocre at best. As always, I docked the disc due to its lack of lossless audio, as lossy DD 5.1 made it feel like a relic from 20 years ago.

Beyond that, though, the soundfield failed to bring much ambition to the affair. Music showed reasonable stereo imaging and also spread to the surrounds in a moderate manner.

As for effects, they cropped up in the forward side channels to a mild degree but they failed to create much involvement. The surrounds also didn’t add much to the proceedings.

Despite the lossy nature of the track, the audio seemed sufficient, with dialogue that came across as reasonably natural. The mix brought out the flick’s pulsing score in a positive manner.

Effects offered surprisingly little to do but they felt fairly accurate. Expect a perfectly meh mix.

As we shift to extras, we find no fewer than four commentaries, the first of which comes from writer/director Uwe Boll. A video affair, Boll offers a running, screen-specific look at inspirations, story, characters and themes, cast and performances, sets and locations, and reactions to the film.

Boll offers a chat that fits with his reputation, one that means he seems antagonistic at times as he defends his work. Boll also provides some highly questionable “statistics” to support his anti-immigrant contentions.

Despite these drawbacks, Boll manages to give us a decent look at the production. I can’t claim we learn a ton about the film here, but even with its flaws, Boll’s commentary manages to become a moderately informative affair.

As noted, Boll makes this a video affair, which means we see a little box on screen that shows the filmmaker as he remarks. This adds nothing to the presentation.

The subsequent commentaries all stick with audio only. Yippee Ki-Yay Mother Video founder Kenn A. Williams and film historian Mike Leeder sit together for their running, screen-specific chat about genre domains, cast and crew, story/characters, some production elements and their thoughts about the flick and others.

Leeder and Williams occasionally criticize the film's editing and pacing, though in fairly gentle terms, and I can't claim they praise the flick up the wazoo. They clearly give it a good rating but they don't rave about it.

Still, Leeder and Williams seem determined to accentuate the positive and pooh-pooh the negative, especially related to Boll, who they don't think deserves the bad press he gets. They praise him for his willingness to confront his critics.

Boll regularly has referred to detractors with crude slurs and has challenged these folks to actually fight him in the boxing ring. That's not a temperament that should be viewed positively, as it makes Boll seem psychotic. Michael Bay gets tons of negative press as well but he doesn't have a huge section of his Wikipedia biography devoted to how he reacts to those naysayers.

When they don't laud Boll and/or the film, Leeder and Williams tend to ramble and go down uninteresting rabbit holes like their memories of The Old Days of VHS or even earlier. Every once in a while, this track offers some mildly useful information, but mostly it's a chore to sit through it.

Next we hear from Boll collaborator Gary Otto and pop culture writer Mat Bradley-Tschirgi . They sit together for a running, screen-specific discussion of story/characters, some production elements and their thoughts about the movie.

I need to retract my remark that the Williams/Leeder commentary becomes a chore to sit through, as it seems terrific compared to this dud. Despite the prior discussion’s flaws, at least Leeder’s energy keeps us awake.

In the case of the Otto/Bradley-Tschirgi discussion, though, we get a slow pace and a lethargic vibe. They also tell us very little about the film itself.

Instead, they give us bland praise for the movie and its participants. I can find no reason to recommend this intensely dull track.

Finally, we get a solo commentary from website owner Jessie Hobson. During this running, screen-specific track, he offers a “first reaction” piece in which he gives us his thoughts about the film as he sees it for the first time.

In theory, that sounds like an intriguing prospect. In reality, it flops.

This happens because Hobson records a “reaction” commentary in which he rarely reacts. While he occasionally makes fairly banal remarks about what he likes or dislikes, mostly he remains silent or just throws out basic notes about the cast/crew.

As such, we get a painfully boring piece without any obvious value since even when Hobson speaks, he delivers little in terms of insight. Viewers can safely skip this commentary and miss out on nothing.

Costas Mandylor of Uwe Booll runs 57 seconds and features the actor’s thoughts about the filmmaker. This amounts to over the top praise for the director and his fascist agenda.

The disc opens with a trailer for Run. It also includes promos for Intergalactic Civil War and Slinger. No trailer for Citizen appears here.

Note that in an odd move, the Mandylor featurette and the trailers all get stuck onto the disc after the film’s end. Why? I don’t know.

In addition, the disc “hides” the setup menu. After the preview for Run, it goes to a screen that shows two options: “Play” and “Bonus Features”.

When you press “Play”, you then go to a second screen where you can click “Setup”, and that’s where you find the commentaries other than Boll’s. Why not put all the info on one screen like every other Blu-ray and include all the commentaries within the bonus menu? I don’t know.

An incoherent racist rant in the form of a right-wing fantasy, Citizen Vigilante flops in all possible ways. Incompetently made and relentlessly offensive, the movie turns into an unwatchable failure. The Blu-ray brings very good picture but audio seems oddly mediocre and the long roster of supplements proves much less informative than anticipated. Leave this dreck to the MAGA crowd.