The Purge Series / Purge Anarchy
REVIEW BY: ROBERT CHANDLER
"Blessed be our New Founding Fathers and America, a nation reborn."
If I had been a studio head and someone pitched the premise of THE PURGE to me, I would have said yes immediately. I think it's one of the great genre pitches.
The nation indulges itself one night a year when all crime is allowed, even murder, so that the people might purge themselves of their innate homicidal tendencies. It's a Carpenteresque satire of contemporary America that evokes the central tenet of Rollerball, a sport so violent it acts as a global catharsis for humanity's bloodlust and puts an end to war.
Great!
There are four films in the series, with one final film planned, and a two season tv series. It's been a massive hit for producers Blumhouse and Michael Bay, and for its writer, James DeMonaco, who also directed the first three films. DeMonaco wrote the screenplay for Francis Coppola's JACK, a film universally derided (though I rather like it), so maybe this is his revenge. The Carpenter acknowledgement above is apt in that I just discovered DeMonaco wrote the screenplay for the ASSAULT ON PRECINCT THIRTEEN remake. I suspect he is a fan.
I am working my way through the films. I saw the first when it came out in 2013 and thought it was good, but perhaps too small, too contained... it didn't quite live up to its premise. But Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey brought some voltage and class to the production, and it delivered an effective flipside take on the home invasion genre with a healthy dose of social commentary.
The second film, PURGE ANARCHY (2014), which I watched last night, is much better. Frank Grillo plays the Napoleon Wilson / Snake Plissken role, a reluctant hero, who rescues four people and has to nursemaid them through the night while pursuing his own agenda. The social commentary delivers bigger in this film, unafraid to (and having the budget to) point out the difference between rich and poor, white and black, in the way the American people tackle or embrace purge night, though the film is smart enough to bury these aspects within the plot.
Watched in 2020 at the end of Trump's reign, I'd say the themes and social concerns raised by the film were prescient, and more pertinent now than they were at the time.
The story rips along, and is suitably tense. One or two moments annoy with our band of protagonists doing dumb things (why carry a flashlight in a lit tunnel, it will only give away your position?) but overall, the film works a treat, with the heroes having to get from one incident to the next with their lives and limbs intact.
It looks beautiful, the purge giving the art dept and costume designer plenty of opportunities to create characters out of the folks who have come to claim the night as their own.
Next up, The Purge: Election Year from 2016.