The Purge: Anarchy

You certainly can't blame writer-director James DeMonaco for making the best of a good situation.  After his low budget thriller, The Purge, became a surprise hit last summer, the studio wanted a rapid fire sequel to be released just one year later.  With a bigger budget to work with, DeMonaco gives us The Purge: Anarchy, a much more ambitious sequel than its predecessor.  When so many filmmakers are content to repeat a successful formula in a sequel, it's kind of admirable that he has decided to truly open up the idea he had last time, but didn't have the budget to pull it off.

But my admiration for what he has done goes a little bit deeper.  This is a tighter, tenser, and much more suspenseful film than the first.  The original Purge movie was a simple and largely ineffective home invasion thriller.  This time, the action takes place on the streets, there's a larger cast of characters, and there's even multiple plotlines.  What's most surprising is that DeMonaco doesn't just give us some generic stereotypes with his characters.  Oh, they're not deep, and they barely reach two dimensions.  But at least we don't feel like we know exactly what's going to happen to these people as soon as they walk on the screen.  They also don't exist solely to be victims, or to die in really gruesome ways.  They're sympathetic, and I liked all the performances.

Just like before, the movie is set in a near-future where every year on March 22nd, all crime, including murder, becomes legal for 12 hours.  This annual event, known as The Purge, has supposedly led to a reduction in crime and unemployment.  But as this movie reveals, it's really an opportunity for the wealthy to "thin the herd" of the poor and impoverished.  During the Purge, people either hit the streets to kill and do anything they want, or they board up their homes and wait it out until its over.  The dark satire behind the idea of the Purge is a bit clearer and pointed this time around.  Yes, the concept is still very hard to swallow, but at least its better used here than last time.  The film's central concept is a simple one, where a small group of strangers find themselves out on the street during the middle of the Purge, and must rely on each other in order to survive.

The central character is an unnamed man, referred to only as "Sergeant" in the credits, and is played by Frank Grillo.  He is a tortured man and, of the main characters, is the only one who intends to be out on the streets when the Purge starts up.  He's seeking vengeance for a past pain that we don't learn about until late in the film.  As he drives down the street on his mission, he comes across an innocent mother (Carmen Ejogo) and her adult daughter (Zoe Soul) in trouble.  They have been ripped from the safety of their apartment, and are being loaded into a van by masked men for some unknown purpose.  Against his better judgement, the Sergeant save the pair, and agrees to help them get to safety.  His load becomes even more crowded when he picks up a married couple (Zach Gilford and Kiele Sanchez), who had their car break down just as the Purge was about to start.  The five characters must find their way to a safe house, while the Sergeant tries to keep his eye on his real purpose for being outside this night.

The Purge: Anarchy takes a straightforward action approach, and it's quite effective here.  There is no real central villain to the story, rather our characters must overcome one challenge after another, whether its a bloodthirsty motorcycle gang, some maniacs armed with flamethrowers who are "cleansing" the subway tunnels of poor people seeking shelter during the Purge, or a lunatic gunman up on a roof who is just shooting at anyone passing by.  The movie does create a certain level of suspense that it carries through to the end.  Since the main characters are not the walking stock figures we expect, it does create a certain amount of tension as to which of these characters will live to see the next day.  Wisely, the movie also doesn't get so bogged down in character and dialogue that it slows the movie down, either.  I think DeMonaco finds a good balance.

When the movie decides to get political, it can be quite blunt.  Sometimes I think it is used for dark comedic effect, such as a scene when our heroes find themselves up for auction in front of a room of wealthy people, who place bids on the people they want to kill.  But, in other moments, the movie's political message is heavy-handed and kind of laughable in a bad way.  Fortunately, this does not happen too often.  The movie decides to mainly play itself up as an action thrill ride, and on that level, the film works.  There's more than enough scenes where we find ourselves much more involved in the action than we might expect.  Of course, your enjoyment of the film is probably related to whether or not you can buy the premise behind the Purge itself.  I wasn't able to last time, but this time around, the action and suspense won me over enough that I was able to put it in the back of my head.

The Purge: Anarchy is no masterpiece, but it's successful at what it tries to do.  At the very least, DeMonaco shows that he's not only able to go bigger with a sequel, but also make a lot of noted improvements over the first.  This isn't what I would call a smart movie.  But it's more fun than you might expect.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

0 comments