Since talk about this film has been doing the rounds and it is controversial enough to have been banned in Germany, I decided to track it down. For what could possibly be so 'bad', so 'racist', about a film directed by someone with no known Rightist sympathies, whose lead actor identifies as 'half-Jewish', has been accused of rape, has experimented with homosexual acts via Grindr hookups, and who has been accused of having cannibalistic desires by multiple women? Isn't this just like the film version of Kanye West's 'Heil Hitler' song? A novelty that will be forgotten as fast as it emerged?
What to expect regarding themes:
You do *not* want children anywhere near this. Nor anyone faint-hearted or with a weak stomach. Nevertheless, there are no themes in it that haven't been outdone by other films. Thus, I conclude that Germany's refusal to apply a classification to the film - which effectively bans it - is purely because of its supposed 'potential' to incite violence against immigrants, and not because of any of the below themes.
When we discard this kind of paranoia about its criminogenic potential and look at the movie calmly and rationally, what do I personally think that its classification should be? For whom is this movie safe? Why would I say that this film clearly deserves an R/NC/Adults Only/equivalent film classification rather than a refusal to classify, i.e. a ban in all but name?
Medium-to-Strong Sexual Themes/Nudity: There is a lengthy sex scene involving a prostitute. Said scene also adds nothing to the plot. A flashback of a rape (by nons) later occurs, but, unlike the former scene, this scene is not explicit.
Medium-Level Coarse Language: Throughout the whole film.
Mild Drug Use (no recreational drug use): Two White males try to spike two White women's drinks with an unspecified liquid date rape drug with the intent of taking them to a hotel to rape them. A White male Leftist or liberal judge is injected with an unspecified, similar drug, the protagonist later remarks to the incapacitated judge that it probably feels like heroin. Alcohol consumption occurs at various points, and alcohol is also spilled over the judge as the protagonist tries to pass off his murder of the judge as a guilt-induced suicide.
Strong Violence: Like other Boll films, this uses violence against civilians to be controversial, shocking, and transgressive. For instance, a White woman is fatally stabbed in the neck by a negroid in the first few minutes. (This is the kind of scene that would horrify Western governments.) Violence against the pigs is another commonality with other Boll films. SWAT comes after the protagonist. At least one pig's head explodes in the ensuing shoot-out. The blood and gore effects are generally graphic and won't disappoint those who enjoy such content.
Overall verdict: This film is something of a novelty and will probably attract a cult following. Otherwise, it is par for the course. One has the sneaking suspicion that if the races were reversed: a non-white tough guy killing White rapists and cops, this movie would be hailed as progressive and certainly not subject to any bans. Thus, one could think of it as a typical action film wearing an unusual skin; it inverts our usual expectations: a cold, emotionless American tough guy is the protagonist while the antagonists are violent criminal nons, along with SWAT and Leftist judges.
Is there any genuinely 'racist' content at all? The answer is flatly no: no mention is even made of race, no racial slurs appear in the dialogue, etc. Leftists are simply getting het up because Boll wasn't afraid to depict nons as murderers and rapists, even though they were in the specific rape incident that the rape incident in the film is based on. 'Islamic extremists and the woke Left' is probably the closest dialogue to anything 'racist', but, ultimately, that's just civic nationalist language at most.
A brief aside: This film was shot entirely in Croatia and has many Croatian names in the credits. However, the film's world is not any specific country. It is only clear that it occurs somewhere in Europe. Whether intended or not, this makes sense because these problems are now everywhere in Europe, after all. The fact that it could be anywhere at all in Europe strengthens its case: to Europeans, the film is no longer about 'just some other country', but your own.
One wonders if Boll had great trouble trying to find a country that would permit him to shoot scenes for this film, leading him to approach more obscure countries. He certainly would not have been able to shoot this in Germany.
What to expect regarding themes:
You do *not* want children anywhere near this. Nor anyone faint-hearted or with a weak stomach. Nevertheless, there are no themes in it that haven't been outdone by other films. Thus, I conclude that Germany's refusal to apply a classification to the film - which effectively bans it - is purely because of its supposed 'potential' to incite violence against immigrants, and not because of any of the below themes.
When we discard this kind of paranoia about its criminogenic potential and look at the movie calmly and rationally, what do I personally think that its classification should be? For whom is this movie safe? Why would I say that this film clearly deserves an R/NC/Adults Only/equivalent film classification rather than a refusal to classify, i.e. a ban in all but name?
Medium-to-Strong Sexual Themes/Nudity: There is a lengthy sex scene involving a prostitute. Said scene also adds nothing to the plot. A flashback of a rape (by nons) later occurs, but, unlike the former scene, this scene is not explicit.
Medium-Level Coarse Language: Throughout the whole film.
Mild Drug Use (no recreational drug use): Two White males try to spike two White women's drinks with an unspecified liquid date rape drug with the intent of taking them to a hotel to rape them. A White male Leftist or liberal judge is injected with an unspecified, similar drug, the protagonist later remarks to the incapacitated judge that it probably feels like heroin. Alcohol consumption occurs at various points, and alcohol is also spilled over the judge as the protagonist tries to pass off his murder of the judge as a guilt-induced suicide.
Strong Violence: Like other Boll films, this uses violence against civilians to be controversial, shocking, and transgressive. For instance, a White woman is fatally stabbed in the neck by a negroid in the first few minutes. (This is the kind of scene that would horrify Western governments.) Violence against the pigs is another commonality with other Boll films. SWAT comes after the protagonist. At least one pig's head explodes in the ensuing shoot-out. The blood and gore effects are generally graphic and won't disappoint those who enjoy such content.
Overall verdict: This film is something of a novelty and will probably attract a cult following. Otherwise, it is par for the course. One has the sneaking suspicion that if the races were reversed: a non-white tough guy killing White rapists and cops, this movie would be hailed as progressive and certainly not subject to any bans. Thus, one could think of it as a typical action film wearing an unusual skin; it inverts our usual expectations: a cold, emotionless American tough guy is the protagonist while the antagonists are violent criminal nons, along with SWAT and Leftist judges.
Is there any genuinely 'racist' content at all? The answer is flatly no: no mention is even made of race, no racial slurs appear in the dialogue, etc. Leftists are simply getting het up because Boll wasn't afraid to depict nons as murderers and rapists, even though they were in the specific rape incident that the rape incident in the film is based on. 'Islamic extremists and the woke Left' is probably the closest dialogue to anything 'racist', but, ultimately, that's just civic nationalist language at most.
A brief aside: This film was shot entirely in Croatia and has many Croatian names in the credits. However, the film's world is not any specific country. It is only clear that it occurs somewhere in Europe. Whether intended or not, this makes sense because these problems are now everywhere in Europe, after all. The fact that it could be anywhere at all in Europe strengthens its case: to Europeans, the film is no longer about 'just some other country', but your own.
One wonders if Boll had great trouble trying to find a country that would permit him to shoot scenes for this film, leading him to approach more obscure countries. He certainly would not have been able to shoot this in Germany.
One huge flaw I didn't mention at the time was making the protagonist a millionaire. At one point in the movie he meets with his accountant and rants about how he's earning $50m/year but losing $5m/year to squatters living in his apartment buildings. Huh? Isn't the character supposed to be an "Everyman" type? Why would a millionaire spend his day riding the city bus or walking through dangerous hoods for no stated purpose? Also, he hasn't personally been harmed by the rapefugees; he's not even European.
There's nothing driving or "anchoring" this character's motivations; he's just a rich American "trust fund brat" that, from the outside, looks like he's using the crimes of rapefugees as a pretext for satisfying his own blood lust. If a friend or relative had actually been harmed, it would have changed the stakes and context of the whole story. Instead, Armie Hammer plays a Patrick Bateman caricature.
And as I mentioned in the link, the protagonist actually kills more cops than rapefugees; which isn't what the premise of the movie promised or what the audience would expect. The whole damn thing is a nonsensical mess that actually deceives the audience it draws.
I thought he was the kid at the beginning whose mom was stabbed? Maybe they didn't say it but that's what I was going off of.
That said, him being a millionaire/landlord has absolutely nothing to do with the plot so I don't know why they included it; everything could have happened the same way if he was an everyman.
When he meets with his accountant they talk about how he was in the U.S. Army -- *Get it, because his name is Armie Hammer!* -- which apparently gave him a free discharge two weeks later because his father died. Not that we ever get to see Armie Hammer use any of his Army training or anything clever like that. Boll doesn't give a fuck about Chekhov's Gun, if he's ever heard of the concept.
> *Chekhov's gun is a narrative principle emphasizing that every element in a story should be necessary, while irrelevant elements should be removed. For example, if a gun is included in a story, there must be a reason for it, such as being fired at some later point. The principle that all elements must eventually come into play over the course of the story is recorded, with some variation, in several letters by Anton Chekhov, as advice for young playwrights.*