annoyingly self-congratulatory

This film is caught up in congratulating itself on having the supposed courage to take on issues like media desensitization to violence, etc. But that point was already old-hat by the time the movie was made.

Oliver Stone was saying the same thing in Natural Born Killers a decade earlier, and with much more creativity, I might add. And, not sure of the date, but some time in the 90s anyway, The Simpsons were calling out the triteness of the whole posture with their send-up of Tarantino...

"What I'm trying to say here, man, is that, like violence is everywhere in our society, it's like, even in our breakfast cereal."

So, I'd say that when your supposedly radical critique has become so commonplace that it's already been a punchline on Simpsons, it's time to find something more original to say.