By Jeremy Gordon
A film about a migrant-murdering vigilante has garnered support from the world’s richest man.
Elon Musk speaking at CPAC in 2025. Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
What if instead of Gotham, Batman patrolled the streets of an unnamed European city? What if, instead of going after criminals and colorful supervillains, he went after migrants, judges and the woke left? And what if, instead of locking them up in Arkham, he slaughtered them all in a blood-soaked rampage?
That is essentially the crux of “Citizen Vigilante,” a film by German director Uwe Boll starring the controversial American actor Armie Hammer. Hammer was accused of emotional and physical abuse by several women in 2021, including allegations of rape and having a cannibalism fetish; allegations that derailed his Hollywood acting career. But now he has been given a new starring role in this German film, which has him playing a rich American who moves to Europe and seeks to save it from its descent into a multicultural, crime-ridden hellhole by murdering gangs of migrants and the corrupt cops, judges and politicians that paved their way.
For years, many on the right have decried what they see as the collapse of the West, sparked by a rush of migrants and refugees fleeing the global South. They claim these, mostly Muslim, migrants have brought crime and unwelcome demographic change to the former beacons of civilization. “Citizen Vigilante” is a Tarantino-esque revenge fantasy tailor-made for them.
Left: American actor Armie Hammer. Martin Kraft. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Right: German director Uwe Boll. Jeff Hitchcock. CC BY 2.0.
The film was initially denied a rating by FSK, Germany’s film regulator, severely restricting how it could be shown, advertised or distributed. It received abysmal critical reviews, not merely for its violently xenophobic message but also for its hollow plot and shoddy special effects. Variety called it “astonishingly bad,” Slate called it “one of the most disturbing” movies in recent memory, and even National Review called it “a Jacobin fantasy wearing right-wing talking points as drag.” In other words, it was a flop, doomed to go down in obscurity.
Then it came to the attention of one particular man. A man who loves wading into international politics and ranting about the fall of Western civilization. A man who just so happens to be the richest person on the planet.
On June 25, with the director’s endorsement, Elon Musk put “Citizen Vigilante” on his social media site X for free for 48 hours. From there, its popularity took off. It climbed the charts on Amazon and Apple, generating views and comments from a host of people who otherwise might never have known it existed. On July 6, the FSK finally gave it a rating, allowing it to be shown in German theaters.
Musk is no stranger to far-right politics. He has supported the far-right parties in France, Germany, the Netherlands and the U.K. Not to mention the United States, where he served a tumultuous stint as the head of DOGE, a temporary government initiative that carelessly slashed federal spending, resulting in dangerous cuts, including billions of dollars in federal medical grants, such as those for cancer research, and widespread backlash. Musk stepped down from his role in May 2025, claiming that he got “carried away” with politics. In reality, he just took his show on the road.
Far-right movements have been sprouting across the globe in recent years and have been particularly strong in Europe. The demographic transformation of certain neighborhoods and cities has ignited calls for “remigration,” a term used by the far right to advocate for mass deportation, even of legal migrants. Remigration has a champion in Elon Musk, who has more than enough discretionary income to throw around. The promotion of “Citizen Vigilante” is just one example of Musk using his economic largesse to mold the world as he sees fit. And how he sees fit tends to come at the expense of migrants, the poor and those he deems members of the woke left.
Jeremy Gordon
Jeremy is a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University studying Creative Writing. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a bachelor's in Criminology and Criminal Justice and worked for four years as an Investigative Specialist with the Public Defender Service for DC.