Why Elon Musk is so obsessed with this violently xenophobic Armie Hammer movie

Citizen Vigilante, the bizarre movie that took over Elon Musk’s brain, explained.

A violent anti-migrant propaganda movie titled Citizen Vigilante was a smash hit on Apple and Amazon over the weekend, and the online right is celebrating. The film, directed by a man frequently described as the world’s worst director and starring disgraced actor Armie Hammer, blew up after Elon Musk began promoting it on X. It currently has a 94 percent audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it has officially acquired distribution.

“Citizen Vigilante has now SURPASSED the ‘Michael’ movie,” posted online provocateur Libs of TikTok joyfully on Friday. (It’s not clear what metric she is using when comparing the two.) Conservative media personality Patrick Bet-David described the film as tapping into “the rage millions of people feel when their own government won’t protect them or their kids.” Turning Point USA contributor Jack Posobiec mused darkly that while “Sinners is a movie about killing white people and has the all-time record for Oscar nominations of any film in history,” the righteous Citizen Vigilante “was banned.” (Citizen Vigilante was denied a rating in Germany, effectively barring it from wide release there.)

Conservatives are excited about Citizen Vigilante because they see it as a corrective to mainstream liberal pop culture. They think its success shows that people are hungry for the story they’re telling about the world. But it’s not clear if Citizen Vigilante’s success proves that there has always been a large and dormant audience hungry for racist propaganda, or if it’s mostly proof of how effectively Elon Musk has used the platform he bought to mainstream xenophobic hatred.

Citizen Vigilante centers on Hammer’s character Sanders, an American landlord living in an unnamed European nation. Over the course of the film, Sanders acts out........

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