Uwe Boll is the closest thing we have to a Jess Franco today. He's a European Marxist who started in satire, moved to popular genre fare and now makes very politically-radical, no budget, S&M cinema. They both share a pitch black sense of humor, a pessimistic outlook on human life, a very handy & experimental commercial style that is ironic and trained for minimalism. Verhoeven is also a big influence on Boll naturally.
But Boll deals almost exclusively with deconstructing American values, particularly the more conspiratorial & exploitative media elements. As a German filmmaker, he often draws parallels to Nazi Germany's mistakes and supposed "positives". He intentionally makes films that feel like propaganda but as "anti-propaganda". With President Down, this once very entertainment-driven filmmaker is all about message and clarity. The miniscule budget of this thing doesn't allow for much of a production at all, but Boll is a veteran filmmaker on different budget levels so he finds genius uses of cinematography and location and makes great use of the action footage he has. He thinks as an editor foremost and I think Eisenstein would appreciate a lot of this film.
Its a powerfully depressing and brutally honest character study of the mass shooters society keeps creating. Boll is very sympathetic but offers fair judgment of this kind of anarchist extremism. Its an amazing tight rope walk actually because I can't think of another filmmaker tackling this themes so directly. With a tiny budget, Boll isn't worried about profits and God bless him for sticking to his guns in such a passive age.
I don't agree with 100% of what he says with this film, but its stuff that needs to be said. I think if this was directed under another name, Boll would've received big critical props.
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