Musk Promotes Armie Hammer Anti-Migrant Film Free on X
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Elon Musk posted Uwe Boll's 'Citizen Vigilante' free on his X account from Thursday to Sunday, giving the film what the source describes as 'a major boost to its marketing and commercial profile' and prompting Musk to tease a sequel
- Quiver Distribution acquired worldwide rights to the film per Variety, after its US theatrical release on 19 June, following Musk's amplification
- Director Uwe Boll told the Telegraph that Germany's FSK ratings board denied the film a certificate in a six-two vote, saying officials told him the movie 'incited violence against migrants'; Boll called it 'deliberate censorship'
- Armie Hammer stars as an American businessman waging vigilante violence in a non-specific European country, in what the source frames as a comeback attempt after 2021 accusations of rape and physically abusive behavior that LA county declined to prosecute
- Variety critic Todd Gilchrist called the film 'a violent, incoherent, morally bankrupt slice of exploitation' and said it was 'so astonishingly bad, it almost feels like [Boll] is deliberately sabotaging his star'
- Boll said he was forced to change the film's original title from 'The Dark Knight' after what he described as 'a friendly conversation' with Warner Bros.
Why it matters: The incident gives Musk's X platform an outsized role as a distribution channel for far-right-coded political cinema that a national regulator declined to certify, while simultaneously handing Boll — long dubbed 'worst director of all time' — and Hammer, a disgraced actor attempting rehabilitation, a worldwide release for a film Variety's critic called 'morally bankrupt.' It compresses three unresolved controversies (platform governance, actor comeback, ratings standards) into one weekend's worth of free streaming.
Ask SkimNews
