Uwe Boll's 'Citizen Vigilante' Banned in Germany Over
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- FSK refused to rate "Citizen Vigilante" in a 6-2 vote, telling Boll's lawyer the film 'incited violence against migrants,' making it effectively unviewable in Germany without importing a Blu-ray from Austria or Switzerland; Variety has reached out to FSK for comment.
- Boll called the decision 'deliberate censorship' and hired a lawyer to challenge it, but lost; the film opens in the U.S. on Friday via distributor Quiver.
- "Citizen Vigilante" stars Armie Hammer as Sanders, a man who delivers vigilante justice to criminals and 'mostly, but not exclusively' migrant targets, after a migrant crime kills a mother in front of her son; the film was inspired by a 2016 Hamburg gang rape of a 14-year-old girl whose perpetrators received suspended sentences.
- Boll defended casting Hammer — who faced sexual abuse accusations in 2021 — saying he was 'never charged with anything, there was no lawsuit,' and cast him partly 'because he was canceled and wanted to work.'
- Boll said he would love to cast Kevin Spacey in a future lead role but guaranteed no American distributor would touch the film, noting Spacey 'won all the lawsuits and legal cases.'
- When the Daily Telegraph asked Boll if he was a Nazi, he laughed and said 'I am not a Nazi!' — adding that questioning anything from aid to Ukraine to conservative social views now gets you labeled 'a friend of Putin or a Nazi or both.'
Why it matters: Boll frames the FSK's 6-2 ruling as 'deliberate censorship,' but the agency cited the vigilante-against-migrants content specifically as disqualifying. With the U.S. release via Quiver proceeding, the split illustrates transatlantic divergence on content standards — and Boll's casting of Hammer, plus his stated desire to work with Spacey, positions his productions as a refuge for actors sidelined by Hollywood.
