quote:

Originally posted by RichardC:
"Hmm...this page doesn’t exist. Try searching for something else."

Please.
What was it about?

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
Holy shit. I don’t think I have ever seen a film quite like this. This might be the most unapologetic anti PC anti woke film I have ever seen. I cannot understand why Germany would ban this film.

quote:

Originally posted by SigSentry:
V for Vendetta, Leon The Professional, and The Accountant, walk into a bar..

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:
This movie is garbage so far

quote:

If the question is, “How did a man incapable of making a good film keep getting millions of dollars to make more?” – well, the German tax loophole brings us closest to the answer.

German investors could write off 100% of their investment in a film production against their income tax. Crucially, tax was only expected on the profits the movies made. So, if a movie bombed, the investors could use the loss to engineer a lower overall tax burden.

Uwe Boll realized this German tax loophole worked heavily in his favor. He could guarantee his investors a financial win either way: through box office profit or through tax savings, depending on whether the movie made money or a loss. It could be argued that making “good” movies was never the goal here; financial engineering was simply prioritized over scripts and artistic quality.

quote:

But crucially, the bizarre tax laws in Germany mean that any wealthy Germans who invest in a movie can write-off the production cost, delay paying their taxes and generally reduce their tax burden. When you disseminate all the boring legal business law surrounding it the bottom line is this – the German investors in a movie only pay tax on any RETURNS the movie makes, their investment is 100% deductible, so the minute the movie makes a profit, said investor has to start paying tax. Plus the investors can actually borrow money to put towards investment and write that off too. Assuming you’re a sharp enough businessman you have a potential goldmine in the making; a way to make money from investing in bad movies...

The truth of it all is that Boll’s entire shtick is in essence, a sham. He’s not a bad director under the true definition. He just isn’t a director period. He’s only bad because he has no intention of trying to direct a coherent movie, let alone be good. All he needs is 90 minutes of celluloid and a good sales pitch for his investors.

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:

quote:

Originally posted by stickman428:
Holy shit. I don’t think I have ever seen a film quite like this. This might be the most unapologetic anti PC anti woke film I have ever seen. I cannot understand why Germany would ban this film.

That's because it isn't banned. The Voluntary Self-Control of the Film Industry (FSK), which is the German equivalent of the MPA (so not a government agency) and rates movies as appropriate for audiences from age 0, 6, 12, 16 or 18 upon request by filmmakers, just declined to give it any rating, twice. This puts it in the good company of other vigilante and assorted splatter and rampage films like the original Death Wish (1978), The Punisher (2004), The Punisher: War Zone (2008), classics like Romero's original Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985) and Tom Savini's Night of the Living Dead (1990) as well as Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993), The Last House on the Left (1972) and the 2009 remake, My Bloody Valentine (1981) and the 2009 remake, Hellraiser (1987) and Hellraiser II (1988), Peter Jackson's Bad Taste (1987) and Braindead (1992), Leatherface (1990), Battle Royale (2000), Tarantino's Planet Terror (2007), Rob Zombie's Halloween (2007) and Halloween II (2010), Hobo with a Shotgun (2011), etc. Even Children of the Corn (1984), John Woo's Hard Boiled (1992), John Rambo (2008), Crank 2 (2009) and Death Race 2 (2010) didn't get an FSK rating as unedited originals for excessive brutality.

Technically, that means they can only be purchased or seen by audiences aged 18 and older, just like with an FSK 18 rating. However, a rating protects films from being "indexed" by the Federal Center for Children and Youth Media Protection (formerly the Federal Evaluation Authority for Youth-endangering Writings), which is a government authority and unlike the voluntary self-control can actually enforce those films not being made available to anyone under 18 by law, obviously including via TV, but also not even advertizing for them in public. They can still be sold to adults, but only "under the counter". This happened to the original uncut versions of A Serbian Movie, Dawn of the Dead, Hostel 2, I spit on your Grave, Maniac, Saw III and IV, The Last House on the Left, etc. So if you distribute or show an unrated movie that subsequently gets indexed, you open yourself up to all kinds of legal risks including the confiscation of copies. Obviously most vendors decline that, though there are alternate ways to the FSK of rating a movie to achieve the same protection; namely going up one level directly to the Top Organization of the Film Industry (SPIO) which may judge a movie legally harmless or at least not seriously youth-endangering under appropriate protection laws. This was done for Battle Royale, both Bloody Valentines, Crank 2, Death Race 2, Rob Zombie's Halloween, Hard Boiled, Hobo with a Shotgun, John Rambo, Planet Terror, the Punisher movies and The Last House on the Left (2009).

How far filmmakers will go to get a rating is chiefly an economical decision since of course as a private service, they'll pay for it. Doing so needs to be justified by an expectation of larger returns from distribution. Some of the aforementioned classics were never submitted for evaluation in the first place and never ran in German theaters as uncut originals, but of course are shown on TV and available on video, DVD or via streaming in edited versions. Given Uwe Boll's typical products, he has always struggled with the FSK, including his 2009 Rampage which was basically mass shooting porn. Evaluators mandated various edits including an end note stating that the "hero" was eventually arrested by police. Obviously no filmmaker likes such interference with his work, but then the good Doctor Boll has never shied away from controversy as a means of promotion; this is the guy who challenged his critics to an actual boxing fight after all. For "Citizen Vigilante", that starts with casting Armie Hammer in the lead for a comeback after all the allegations of sexual violence and cannibalism fantasies surrounding him, so it figures that rather than seeking alternate ways to rate or just edit the movie, he would exploit popular sentiments in contemporary cultural warfare and complain about censorship to get attention.