Superhero culture — sticking up for the little guy, fighting for truth, justice, and the American Way — ceases to function when the punches becoming morally self-evident. Praising, even rewarding, violence blindly encourages rationalization in the face of difficulty. Since you’re an ethical person, might makes right. The author of a 5-star Amazon review of the novel The Masked Saint buys into this wish-fulfillment: “The Masked Saint does what many Christians, including myself, would like to do — pummels the bad guys”. Encouraged by media like this, modern moralistic objectors respond in kind. Why shouldn’t they take down the “bad guy” whenever they can? They’re morally superior, and therefore it’s obviously okay, right?

This is the kind of ethical hubris that quickly leads to the stockpiling of weapons, hawkish foreign policy, and unwillingness to compromise. When you’ve already condemned those you disagree with to a pummeling, why bother listening to what they have to say? Diplomacy falls away when violence becomes holy.

This trap has long snared jihadists, slavers, and Crusaders from both theological sides, and it stills snags faithful pseudo-vigilantes today. Anders Behring Breivik — allegedly to defend “Christian Europe” — bombed and shot down 77 people for “letting down Norway and the Norwegian people” during his 2011 attack in Oslo, Norway. Extreme right-wing Christian terrorist Larry McQuilliams thought he was completely morally justified in unloading over 100 bullets into Austin, Texas in 2014, on his way to burn down the Mexican Consulate. ISIS-level extremism in the name of modern-day theocracy isn’t exclusive to a particular religion, only a particular mindset. Just ask the child soldiers of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Echoing these notions of moral justification, the film adaptation of The Masked Saint concludes with a call-to-arms, a common misquote often attributed to Edmund Burke: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” However, within the context of the film, the likely historical origin of the quotation, taken from Burke’s Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, refutes its reckless hotheadedness: “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle”. An association of good, he argues, contains nuance, intelligence, and thoughtfulness of the sort that would fails to satisfy the morally-outraged bloodlust seen in some parts of America today — and in this film.

The first release by the faith division of Ridgerock Entertainment Group, the production company that most notably brought us Black Mass, and the first non-cartoon release by arguably “family-friendly” production company P23 Entertainment, The Masked Saint follows a pro-wrestler-turned-pastor-turned-vigilante, based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, written by wrestler-turned-pastor Chris Whaley. The adaptation comes from director Warren P. Sonoda, an eclectic director of Canadian comedies whose next project is titled Total Frat Movie, and writer Scott Crowell, whose sole previous credit is an “angst-splattered canvas of urban grit” about a drifter. Sadly, the jump between animated animals, grit, juvenile humor, and moonlighting crimefighters retains more cartoonishness than virtue.

The story follows Chris Samuels, known in the ring as The Saint, as he moves his family to small-town Michigan and begins a career as a pastor. His run-down church, on the wrong side of the tracks, has a leaky roof, a waning congregation, and a mounting debt. The nameless town’s unsavory population (one pimp, a handful of prostitutes, and a wife-beating drunk neighbor) serve as the main antagonists alongside The Saint’s mounting ego as he begins to clean up the town and pay the bills with his fists.

The titular Saint, played by Brett Granstaff, combines an action figure body with a Norman Bates face, deriving creepy satisfaction from every punch and chokehold. He assaults harmless blowhards with an almost sexual pleasure in front of police officers and the film unashamedly gives him a crowd of spectators to quite literally applaud his actions. The actor’s fervor, more towards retribution than towards justice, initially comes off as a misreading of the material or some miscommunication between actor and script, but Granstaff also served as co-writer, so presumably we see the intended artistic vision. The wrestling, which the spectating supporting cast constantly reassures each other is merely exciting acting, plays as scarily realistically thanks to a hulking, villainous wrestler known as The Reaper, who breaks The Saint’s leg in the opening scene of the film. We know the violence in the ring is real, the faces and heels of pro wrestling replaced by an equally simplistic battle of good and evil.

Initially, Samuels hangs up his mask to pursue his new ecclesiastical career, but is inevitably drawn back in when money gets tight, both for his family and his church. Turning mercenary, he returns to the circuit, taking fights for cash. Commodifying this violence, which we have already learned isn’t acting at all, but knuckle-scabbing bloodsport, taints this allegedly holy man. Surely he’ll have his comeuppance for funding his church with a brawler’s payoffs. Strangely, rather than horror, the film adopts an attitude of celebration, the crowds (at one point including his entire congregation) “cheering for blood”.

While Samuels does descend into sin, the sin shamed is his pride — a stance that confirms the film’s positive stance on violence as something deserving of pride. Rather than chastening the corruption of a holy man, his flaw becomes not fully attributing his propensity for punching to God. The major exaltation of God, thanking him for our talents, closely follows The Saint beating a pimp unconscious with a tire iron during his first foray as a crimefighter. According to the New Testament, Jesus spoke to, forgave, and loved prostitutes. Biblically speaking, forgiveness did not have to come after a beating.

Vigilantism isn’t a moral good: it’s violence taken into the hands of a morally self-justified individual outside the bounds of the law. But The Masked Saint seems to encourage it. Certainly vigilantes make up a sizeable part of our cultural imagination, especially in the age of superheroes. But unlike Daredevil, for instance, in which the masked crimefighter struggles with his propensity for violent acts of retribution as selfish expressions of power, The Masked Saint delivers the juvenile advice one takes towards a schoolyard bully one step further: if mean people hit you, hit them back — and if they haven’t hit you yet, then strike first. That’s a dangerous stance to take in an increasingly weaponized world.

The film’s treacherous thesis lurks amid the film’s technical, artistic, and thematic sloppiness — hiding beneath a wretched quagmire like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Why even listen to what a bad movie has to say? Despicable morals — encouraging lying to police, taking the law into one’s own hands, and faith being a justifying means to an end — encourage fear-mongering and closed-minded isolation rather than togetherness. Already often exploited for their money by corporations hocking cinematic schlock, the Christian community continues accruing films that double as quick and easy propaganda that simplify and misappropriate their values — the film equivalent of a collection of outrage-generating Facebook memes.

A violent film, celebrating the use of violence to sponsor religion, asks its religious audience to sponsor more violence, a cycle inevitably resulting in nothing but the self-fulfilled prophecy of continued dogmatic aggression. Rather than supporting the bastardization of Christian ideals, rejecting The Masked Saint’s deluded, antiquated, immature nonsense reflects the strength to reject violence as a valued and valid solution.