Lenin’s favorite capitalist and the great grandfather Hollywood forgot.
Armie Hammer spent the summer of 2026 back in the headlines, and not gently. His comeback vehicle, Citizen Vigilante, a low-budget thriller written and directed by the pro-Israel German provocateur Uwe Boll, reached theaters and digital platforms on June 19 and immediately drew fire. Hammer plays Sanders, a wealthy American in Zagreb who guns down criminals, rapists, and the judges he believes let them walk, most of them written as Muslim migrants.
German regulators refused to rate the picture, effectively banning it over fears it incites violence against immigrants. Elon Musk then posted the entire film to X for free, and right wing figures rallied to it. Hammer, who lost his career after 2021 sexual misconduct allegations that Los Angeles prosecutors declined to charge, told The Hollywood Reporter, “I’m pretty sure I cried,” adding, “I just wanted to work again.” He has always denied the accusations, insisting, “I didn’t do what people are saying I did.”
Yet the frenzy over one actor obscures a far stranger Hammer story. Armie’s great grandfather, Armand Hammer, spent nearly a century turning intrigue into a business model, and almost every chapter of his life arrived wrapped in some type of scandal.
Armand Hammer was born in New York City on May 21, 1898, to Julius and Rose Hammer, Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire.
