Film review by Hank Somerset (guest reviewer)
Written, produced, photographed, and directed by Uwe Boll
It's utter garbage.
Badly written, badly acted, badly directed, and a total joke.
An entitled, uncharismatic, multi-millionaire psycho (with a face like a smacked arse) goes around telling off fare-dodging kids on buses (why is he on a bus in the first place? We don't know), then breaking their arms in broad daylight, in an open green space, and telling them off again.
He also manages to kill a variety of utter scumbags (mainly black immigrants) whilst making repetitive statements, about bad politicians and bad Muslims, recorded on video (presumably to go on YouTube). We're shown a montage of cheery folk praising him online (nobody is critical). The police track him down (we're not told how) and a whole SWAT team are murdered by machine guns, weilded by our constipated vigilante from inside a big metal box. Blood everywhere, cartoonish images of exploding heads all add to the orgasmic effect. He then escapes (how? The house is surrounded by police in tanks), and he even leaves an explosive booby trap to finish off anybody daring to help the wounded. But why? Why murder police officers?
We also see him visiting a prostitute in a building that he owns, yet he's more concerned about the damp ceiling and crumbling brickwork.
Armie Hammer is a decent actor, and looks very cool in his black roll neck, and long black coat (Boll originally called the film 'The Dark Knight' until Warner Bros came a calling). But, he's given no character, no moments of introspection, or dialogue that's remotely realistic. He's a monotone mouthpiece, with zero empathy for anybody. There's a terrible, boring scene of pure exposition where he talks about a deceased mother and a distant father, but that's it. Hammer delivers every single line as though he's on valium, or he's as bored as the viewer is.
There are lots of shots of him in an empty room, playing with a huge collection of guns.
He kidnaps a judge, fakes his suicide, whilst ranting on and on about corruption in high places. He even forces an innocent driver off the road, in order to prove a point that most people are sheep and will crash and burn rather than make an illegal move into the wrong motorway lane!
The finale involves him visiting a Muslim family, again in broad daylight with no disguise, whose son is out on bail for a gang rape of a 14 year old girl. The father spouts excuses about the boy's age, and insists he's being taught Muslim values. Armie shoots the boy in the knee, then orders him to invite all the other bailed rapists around to the flat. As they arrive, they are all shot dead. The actors are all pretty terrible, and never appear to be very concerned about the psycho in their badly decorated lounge. When the mum and daughter chip in with insults about white girls "asking for it", they too are shot dead.
There's a lot of blood. A lot.
It's cheap. It's nasty. It's incredibly amateur. Hammer, already ostracised from Hollywood for dubious personal problems, has made a truly terrible choice in taking this role on. He'll be a hero to deranged extremists, but I doubt any half decent filmmaker will touch him with a loaded bargepole.
Yes, there's a huge crime problem in society. Yes, there are problems with illegal migrants. But, all those issues can be addressed much more effectively than this garbage. This film makes Michael Winner's 'Death Wish' look like Shakespeare. All it's done is wind up everybody. But, in Ewe Boll's world, exploitation means money.
Shameful.
