Way, way back in 2014, when I had just started this blog, I reviewed a little film called The Purge. It did not impress me. A year or so later, on the urging of a friend who wanted to see me rant more, I reviewed the sequel - The Purge: Anarchy. It also failed to impress, although I will at least admit it was slightly better than the first movie. Well, it's now 2016, and we've come to the third and (apparently? Hopefully?) final film in the series - The Purge: Election Year. Let's not hold our breaths for a miraculous turnaround on this series' fortunes, shall we?
Two years after the events of the last film, and Sargeant Leo Barnes (our pseudo-Punisher from the last film, only since he's played by Frank Grillo I guess we should start calling him Crossbones now) is now working as the head of security for Senator Charlie Roan, who is running for President on an anti-Purge platform. Roan lost her entire family during a Purge eighteen years previously, and her promise to end the Purge has gained her a lot of support, to the point where the New Founding Fathers of America are genuinely worried that she'll win. So they remove the exemption clause in the Purge rules that state that government officials are exempt from being targeted in the Purge, and then set about trying to eliminate her during that year's annual Purge. Barnes and Roan have to escape to the streets of Washington DC to try to survive the night, where they come across various groups both out to have some Purge fun or just get through the night themselves. Will they all survive the night and will the NFFA finally get what's coming to them?
My local cinema described The Purge: Election Year as containing "biting political commentary". I want to make something clear here. Yes, Minister is "biting political commentary". So is The New Statesman. The West Wing. Spitting Image. Even The Hunger Games. This film, meanwhile, has at its climax a scene where a group of what are essentially black revolutionary fighters have a shootout with literal Nazis. Yes, just in case we had somehow missed that the NFFA are the bad guys, in this movie their mercenary henchmen are literal Nazis. The only way this is "biting political commentary" is if you've recently suffered a traumatic brain injury or undergone trepanation just before seeing the film. At the very least I think we can assume that The Purge: Election Year doesn't think too highly of its audience's intelligence.
Don't worry though, because the Nazis aren't the only antagonist group we're introduced to over the course of the film. There's a group of "murder tourists" from Russia who all dress up as Uncle Sam or the Statue of Liberty and have come over just to join in the fun of Purge night; there's a pair of psychotic Catholic schoolgirls with blinged-out AK-47s; and there's a church full of conservative Christians who've come to the conclusion that Jesus would have Purged with the best of them and never mind all that business about turning the other cheek. There's an offensive caricature for everyone's tastes here.
(And may I just add that one of the psychotic schoolgirls, known in the credits as "Freakbrides", really was not that good an actress. All she did was pout, roll her eyes back in her head and over-emote at the camera every time she had a line. In a film that makes infuriates me on so many levels, you really have to stand out on a special way for me to make a special mention of something, so take that for what it's worth.)
As I said above, The Purge: Election Year really seems to think its audience is stupid. It's loaded down with cliches - there's a deli shop owner who might as well just announce that he's two weeks from retirement and just bought a boat called the "Live 4 Eva", so obvious is it that he's doomed from the moment we meet him. There's the Mexican immigrant with a secret past who's really good with a sniper rifle. And for all its pretensions towards "biting political commentary" and thinly-veiled class war statements, the fate of all the poor minority people who suffer most during the Purge is still in the hands of a pretty, rich white woman. It's a patronising music video without any music (apart from at the beginning when 20th Century Boy is used and I'm sure I felt Marc Bolan turning in his grave).
At least the film ties up at least another of its loose ends - remember the black homeless veteran from the first Purge film, the one who effectively caused all the trouble? Well he's back in this film, and now he's the leader of the revolutionary group. So in case you were ever wondering what happened to him, there's that. Overall, though, it's time to put this series to bed, if only because if they dumb it down any further then any further films in the franchise will have to be presented by the Teletubbies.
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