Citizen Vigilante, the movie the elites don’t want you to see, is Atlas Shrugged meets Death Wish, Batman, Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, Taxi Driver and Deep Throat.
That Germany refused to rate it and thus thought it had quashed the movie, prompted Elon Musk to post it for free on his X platform. Alas, I did not realize that his posting had a 48-hour shelf life. Demands of my life intruded and the open window slammed shut before I got to watch.
But, the good people at CitizenFreePress.com found another free link and I rushed to watch the movie Saturday evening before it, too, disappeared. Such was the need for immediate action, I paused watching the World Cup and Barrett-Jackson’s Columbus, Ohio, car auction to view the movie.
I am glad I did.
Critics, including those at Variety, subject the movie to the usual nitpicking you might expect from them, regarding any production that is short on DEI, Wokeness and general leftist messaging and long on reality. What they fail to acknowledge is that Citizen Vigilante reflects a growing disgust with out of control migration, a lax legal system that coddles lawbreaking immigrants and a political system that has encouraged the whole phenomenon for reasons of self-interest.
Vigilantism is nothing new, having been referred to in the book of Genesis in the Bible.
Before the Americans declared independence from Great Britain, vigilantes operated in areas such as South Carolina, opposing British rule.
It is but another contradiction of our times that when leftists feel ill-treated by the system, their attempts to break it down are tolerated, if not lionized in the LameStream media and by leftist sycophants in Congress.
But, let a right-minded individual seek similar redress outside the framework and he/she is to be pilloried mercilessly.
The fictional Michael Sanders, the hero of Citizen Vigilante, is such a figure.
In some ways, Sanders shares the economic values of John Galt, the main character in Ayn Rand’s classic Atlas Shrugged novel.
We see Sanders lecturing three punks – one girl and two guys – who board a bus without paying, that they and those like them are just stealing from others when they do this, or filch food from a store.
Sanders also points out to an executive in the real estate company he has inherited, that allowing people who refuse to pay their rents to remain in the apartments is simply stealing, no matter what the government says. Take note, Mamdani the Commie.
Left-wing TV screeds love to describe their biased scripts as “ripped from the headlines.” Well, Citizen Vigilante is ripped from the headlines, too, just not with the selective leftist screening process and subsequent massaging of the message.
The Sanders character is consistent in his economic philosophy, insisting on paying in full, with a bonus, the prostitute operating in a brothel housed in a building he owns. That graphic scene prompts our Deep Throat reference.
There is much to quibble with regarding the movie. Its scattershot, flashback style makes it hard at times to find context.
We are told Sanders is a rich American West Point graduate operating in Europe, but it is not clear where. It has been written that the movie was filmed in Croatia and Germany.
The head police character, Agent Henry, notes he is with Interpol, yet some reviewers refer to him as a local policeman.
The slow-motion gore is a bit over-the-top, but at times playing up-tempo jazz as a backdrop to the carnage is amusing.
The basic message rings true; average law-biding citizens are becoming fed up with a world turned upside-down. As the Sanders character repeatedly tells the masses in pixelated, voice-disguised social media videos, he’s doing this for them until they can or will do it for themselves.
Unlike the Charles Bronson character in Death Wish, Sanders comes to his vigilante role trained for the challenge.
Unlike Dirty Harry, who operates within the framework while pushing the envelope, Sanders does it his way, entirely. You might recall the Dirty Harry sequel Magnum Force, which has Harry singlehandedly dispatching a group of rogue cops who had gone vigilante.
Unlike Batman, Sanders does not cooperate with the police, but he does help them do their work.
Unlike Taxi Driver’s main character, Sanders is not insane.
But, Citizen Vigilante borrows from each of those vigilante classics.
At a time when Joy Behar and her ilk publicly proclaim they are ashamed to be Americans (and I, too, am ashamed that she is an American), Citizen Vigilante hints at time when the left just might get the Civil War it desires.
The left might not like the results.
Sam Ross Jr's site 