06/09/2026 - Belgian director Olivier Pairoux delivers a gritty, thought-provoking thriller about the lure of vigilantism

After the luminous SpaceBoy, a pop, refreshing family adventure, Olivier Pairoux returns with a second feature which is the polar opposite of his first—except, perhaps, in its desire to harness the codes of a very specific genre to explore a subject that fascinates him and its underlying contradictions. Vigilante, now premiering in Belgium at the Brussels International Film Festival (BRIFF) after its world premiere in Angoulême, probes the temptation of taking justice into one’s own hands when the system meant to protect our children fails to do so.

Morville (Eddy De Pretto) is a lone hero driven by conflicting urges. His intentions are commendable, but when it comes to choosing his methods, he is quite reckless. Every night when darkness falls, Morville, haunted by a painful family past, turns into a vigilante – ie. one of those internet-age would-be avengers who hunt down child sex offenders by posing as kids and take it upon themselves to expose them and their crimes on social media. It’s a shadowy activity he carries out with two friends, Xavier (Damien Chapelle) and Steve (Zacharie Chasseriaud), until one day, the latter is assaulted during an operation. As he investigates what happened, Morville is gradually led to question the legitimacy of his approach. What really motivated him, deep down? And how about Xavier and Steve? Is one really allowed to do evil to do good? Although the moral guilt of the child sex offenders hunted by Morville and his mates is beyond doubt, does it mean they are allowed to dispense with establishing their guilt in a court of law?

Morville asks himself all these questions—or hears them from people around him, namely a journalist (Roxane Mesquida) who is conducting her own undercover investigation into the vigilante phenomenon while concealing her real agenda and his young niece (Léontine Clerbois), whom he reluctantly involves in an effort to protect her. Meanwhile, the police are there too, watching this little game of cat and mouse from afar – keeping their distance for lack of means, but also in order to swoop on their prey when the time is right.

Although the film was shot in Brussels and Charleroi, Olivier Pairoux manages to create a unique world tailored to his story, almost comic book-like, around a handful of striking sets—as if to heighten the ethical dilemmas tormenting his characters. Morville and Steve routinely meet up with Xavier at the boxing club the latter runs but if the ring offers a space where violence is reined in, what do you do with that violence once outside in the street, faced with the world’s own brutality? Pairoux and De Pretto’s Morville is an opaque hero, all the harder to grasp as he keeps making choices which end up undermining him and the people close to him. But at a time when society at large is at a loss on how to respond to the ubiquity of child sex crimes and the apparent impunity surrounding perpetrators, the film’s art direction, which underlines the seedy aspects of this moral ambiguity, and the tension generated by the mise-en-scène allow the film to explore, through action, the complexity of the questions raised by the behaviour of its protagonists.

Vigilante was produced by Kwassa Films (Belgium) and co-produced by Art & Essai (Canada). International sales are handled by Reason8. Brightfish will release the film in Belgium on 9 September.

(Translated from French)