A new action thriller from conservative American media outlet Daily Wire has ignited fierce online backlash just weeks after the release of its official trailer, with critics across social media and the film industry condemning the project as blatant Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian propaganda tied to rising tensions over the Israel-Gaza war.
Produced by the right-wing media company co-founded by high-profile commentator Ben Shapiro, the film centers its plot on a deeply problematic framing that conflates pro-Palestine student activism with radical Islamic terrorism. Set on a fictional Virginia university campus, the story draws direct inspiration from the peaceful pro-Palestine encampments that spread across dozens of U.S. college campuses in 2024, where students protested institutional ties to Israeli entities accused of complicity in what many global scholars and activists describe as genocide in Gaza.
The 2-minute trailer, posted to X in late June 2026, opens with a charged montage that weaves together unrelated footage: Fox News segments warning of domestic terror plots, remarks by Senator Marco Rubio referencing “radical Islam”, video of Islamic State executions, footage of the 9/11 attacks, and clips of real student pro-Palestine encampments. As the camera zooms out to the fictional campus, the Islamic call to prayer, the adhan, blares over campus speakers. The trailer then shows a group of students stopping mid-walk to spread mats and prostrate in prayer — a depiction that multiple Muslim commentators have pointed out includes major inaccuracies in how Islamic prayer is performed, seemingly designed for inflammatory effect rather than authentic representation.
The film’s official logline lays bare its provocative narrative: when “radical Islamic terrorists” hijack a liberal college’s pro-Palestine encampment to impose Sharia law and execute non-Muslims (branded “infidels”), a ragtag group of conservative students, a veteran security guard, and a disgraced Delta Force operative must fight back to save the campus and protect America from within. That Delta Force lead role is filled by Jonathan Majors, the once-prominent Hollywood actor who was found guilty of third-degree assault and second-degree harassment against his ex-girlfriend in 2023. The casting marks Majors’ attempted comeback after he was dropped from high-profile Marvel Cinematic Universe projects, which cut ties to protect the franchise’s commercial standing following his conviction.
The project is a loose follow-up to Kyle Rankin’s 2020 film *Run, Hide, Fight*, with Rankin returning as writer and director for the new installment. From the moment the trailer and plot details were made public, critics flooded social media to denounce the film’s harmful framing.
“This is not a brave return to old-school action filmmaking. It is propaganda designed to turn every pro-Palestinian student into a potential terrorist and every Muslim into a threat… They are selling dehumanization as entertainment,” one X user wrote, summing up a common critique. Another commentator compared the work to 2010s Fox News propaganda meant to scare older voters into supporting aggressive U.S. foreign policy, while journalist Laila Al-Arian joked that the film was a clumsy attempt to distract from the humanitarian crisis in Gaza: “How to cover up a genocide. Make a cheesy over-the-top 80s style islamophobic movie with bad acting.”
Professional film critics echoed these condemnations. Brooke Ivey Johnson of the *Metro* noted that the film’s official synopsis reads like an unedited AI-generated mashup of every current American culture war talking point. The *A.V. Club*, a leading media and culture outlet, labeled the film “brazenly propagandistic” and said it was clearly created to manufacture outrage across the political divide to draw attention.
Compounding the controversy is the film’s official promotional poster, which depicts a man holding a knife to the throat of a young woman wearing a keffiyeh — the traditional Palestinian scarf that has become a universal symbol of pro-Palestine protests against Israeli occupation. Social media users have mocked the work as a relic of post-9/11 war on terror hysteria, with one commenter writing: “2003 called, they want their propaganda back.”
While the overwhelming majority of public responses have been critical, the film has found support from a small cohort of anti-Muslim commentators, who have amplified its framing of Muslims as a domestic threat and echoed its calls for preparation for conflict. This alignment has deepened concerns among advocacy groups that the film will exacerbate the already growing trend of anti-Muslim sentiment and hate speech across the United States.
As of mid-July 2026, Daily Wire has not issued an official response to the widespread backlash against the project.