As The Daily Wire expands its film studio, it faces a fundamental challenge: balancing aggressive conservative commentary with the demands of compelling, character-driven storytelling.
The cinematic vigilante of the 1970s. exemplified by Charles Bronson’s architect in the “Death Wish” series. didn’t need a manifesto. He moved through a gritty. dangerous New York City with little more than a gun and a singular. wordless drive for retribution. He was a hammer. not a debate club president; if the audience walked away with a dark view of city streets. the film had done its job as entertainment.
Modern cinematic efforts from The Daily Wire, however, are operating with a different set of instructions. Under Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing. the studio is increasingly using the medium of film to deliver blistering. rapid-fire lectures on the state of American culture. The latest offering. a campus action flick titled “Run Hide Fight: Infidels. ” illustrates the studio’s ongoing struggle to prioritize narrative over their signature reactionary commentary.
Since its first original production in 2016, the studio has been clear about its ideological roadmap. “Shut In” depicted a recovering addict and single mother fighting off a home invasion. framing her former substance use as the root of her troubles before her transformation into an apple-butter-making tradwife. In 2020, director-writer Kyle Rankin delivered “Run Hide Fight,” a parable about a 17-year-old girl navigating a school shooting. By 2022, the studio moved into documentary territory with Matt Walsh’s “What Is a Woman?,” which targeted non-traditional gender identities.
“Infidels” elevates this approach by transplanting the school-shooting premise into the center of campus culture wars. Starring Jonathan Majors as a veteran who rails against the erosion of Western civilization. the film depicts a liberal arts college taken over by terrorists disguised as pro-Palestinian protesters. The script, again by Kyle Rankin, is a dense catalog of conservative frustrations. It skewers everything from land acknowledgments and agnosticism to the utility of higher education and the inclusion of mixed-race families in commercials. In this version of reality. the college president and trustees are paralyzed by a fear of causing offense. and the mayor refuses to authorize a SWAT team over concerns about bad optics.
The film’s characterizations suggest a disconnect between the creators and their supposed subjects. The undergraduate characters drink whiskey distilled in dorm rooms. listen to 90s rock band Seven Mary Three. and one is introduced while swinging a sword and quoting Rudyard Kipling. These students feel less like authentic college-aged activists and more like projections of a suburban, middle-aged worldview.
This gap between intent and execution reveals a recurring obstacle for the studio. The audience is expected to root for protagonists who hold views indistinguishable from the studio’s own commentators. while the villains—outside of their radical Islamist devotions—often echo those same political talking points. Rankin’s script seems to relish the demise of his liberal caricatures; he films the death of a blue-haired activist and her gay peer with a distinct. lingering focus. Meanwhile. Majors’ character—who warns of threats to “the wombs of our women”—is framed as the hero. even while using ethnic epithets against a dying Egyptian neighbor.
The studio’s upcoming project, a pro-ICE thriller with the working title “Pawn Shop,” suggests a continuation of this friction. The leaked script features a scene where agents engage in a standoff with antifa counterprotestors. In one sequence. a hero agent kills a woman by shooting her twice. once in the neck and once in the head. with the script specifically noting the shots were placed above and below her COVID mask. While the mask might signal an ideological target for the studio’s core audience. the narrative challenge remains: asking a broader viewership to empathize with a protagonist who executes an unarmed woman is a significant heavy lift.
When the Daily Wire’s auteurs attempt to build a siege thriller. their instincts as debate-show hosts often override their duties as storytellers. Where a character like Bronson’s vigilante was a silent force of nature. the current output is increasingly bogged down by “well. actually” dialogue that stops the action cold. The result is a library of films where the agenda isn’t just present—it is the entire point.
The Daily Wire Infidels Ben Shapiro film politics culture war cinema