Om shrî paramâtmane namah... praise the Lord forvever amen.
Welcome, disciple. Welcome to this deliberation about stuff, defining the zeitgeist.
Some days ago I reviewed the film Citizen Vigilante.
And I mentioned how it made me think of other films.
It brings to mind other films of revenge, of a lone hero taking justice in his own hands. This isn't so far-fetched.
This is the genre of Death Wish and Taxi Driver.
And it also emulates other forms of "lone hero against the system", à la Dirty Harry, Rambo, A Handful of Dollars, Getaway.
However, I also mentioned that it makes me think of Ghost World (2001), the screen adaption of Daniel Clowes' eponymous graphic novel. And when I said that in another forum I was disputed. I was met with disbelief. And I was amiss for words; I couldn't explain why Boll's film and this one from 2001 seem similar, akin, related.
But now I will try to put words on that feeling.
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Theory: both Ghost World and Citizen Vigilante say to us: irony is a waste of time. This world is real; it may seem like a "ghost world" but simply rejecting it and reacting to the oppression with irony is a waste of time.
As for Ghost World this message was clearer in the graphic novel than in the film. The film was something of a let-down, actually, a mediocre Hollywoodization. My point is: essentially Ghost World shows us the heroine, Enid Coleslaw, being ironic about everything. Then reality hits home, in the form of love, of real feelings, of failing an exam. And she is lost.
The great thing is that the creator, Clowes, isn't of the generation depicted. He is born around 1960. He is of the Cold War generation, when we weren't ironic about stuff. His portrayal of the Ironic Generation has a heart but essentially it's a fierce criticism of always having an acerbic comment to make, of having a constant snarl on your face, of being a non-non-conformist. It doesn't say "irony is great, try this kids!" -- in fact it says the total opposite.
And Citizen Vigilante, where's the anti-irony message...? -- It isn't in what's on the screen. I'd say, it's in the mere attitude of a film treating a forbidden subject, violence perpetrated by immigrants. It says to other filmmakers, we might live in a dictatorship punishing those who speak up about the scourge of mass immigration -- but f*** all that, I'm gonna speak up anyway! And see, my film is now a great success.
This films kills irony. It says that reacting to the zeitgeist with irony is a waste of time. Get real, react, say what you mean and mean what you say.
I tell you all, this is it. And Chairman Mao once said the same: avoid mumbling, avoid ambiguity, value boldness; a blunt knife draws no blood...! This he said in 1948. And art today must be of this kind. After 30 years of ironic mumbling it's time for the naked truth. Cold, steely political taking-a-stand. And like Mao was of the Left, now this new stance will be from the Right. It simply is the zeitgeist.
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A film I didn't mention in the article was Falling Down from 1993.
It reminds me of Citizen Vigilante in portraying a white guy fed up with woke and Political Correctness. Falling Down did this rather pungently, having an ordinary guy in focus and playing in today's America. And, I'd say, doing a remake of this one could be a way for today's Hollowood to cash in on the new trend, the trend of anti-woke films. They say that Hollywood producers always want to be, not first with the new, but second with the new, cashing in on new trends by doing rip-offs.
And the new trends are rather often set by independent filmmakers. As in Boll's case. A low-budget film hits the big time and then come the copycats. As in Easy Rider, Handful of Dollars, Seventh Seal. So go ahead Hollywood, in this you're home free to a decent profit.
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Boll's film plays in the land of revenge, of vigilantes. Many a good un-political film has this theme. As I've already intimated. And another one is the 1989 Bond film, License to Kill. The working title was "License Revoked", mirroring the plot where Bond's double-oh license is withdrawn but he still continues with some personal scheme of revenge.
As a film it was unremarkable. But the mere plot of having the hero going rougue is common. That's my point. It's a film industry staple.
It also plays out in literature. The American James Bond, to me, is Nick Carter, agent of AXE. Like Bond he was a cold war-phenomenon, in his novels touring the world fighting Communism, using some high-tech weaponry and bedding fair damsels en passant. And he, too, had a vigilante, freelance, acting against the system-plot in The Treason Game, No. 161 in the Killmaster series. Playing around 1980 it tells of commies having infiltrated the US government. And Nick is the only one seeing it; his boss, David Hawk, seems to be part of the conspiracy, so Nick has to go out on his own and take down the high-level baddies.
It's a fine plot, well told. The only drawback is the passage where Nick, after killing the third traitor, says that he felt sick and threw up. This is mere sugar-coating, that "spoonful of sugar making the medicine go down" even to the "decent" reader. Luckily, Boll's film has nothing of this nonsense. Neither has Falling Down, as far as I remember. Neither did the Dirty Harry films have it. If the hero is going solo, taking the law in his own hands -- the reader well understands that he's out on a limb but this mustn't be overstated in that sugar-coated way.
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Om shrî paramâtmane namah... praise the Lord forvever amen.
Related
Citizen Vigilante (2026)
Vision quest (poem)
Faustian era





