Purge: Election Year, The (2016)
Foywonder
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Starring Frank Grillo, Elizabeth Mitchell, Mykelti Williamson, Joseph Julian Soria, Terry Serpico
Written and directed by James DeMonaco
Let’s be honest for a sec. The politics of The Purge movie universe have never made much sense. The Purge is that rare franchise where I dare say a prequel would not only be welcome but wholly necessary because in three films we’ve never gotten an in-depth explanation of who the New Founding Fathers are, what they truly believe, how or why they rose to power, how the very concept of The Purge came to be, or why the populace of the United States has been willing to go along with it for decades. All we’ve gotten for three films are hints and lip service. Again, being totally honest, The Purge concept is really just a cool plot device for a series of action-horror movies.
The first Purge movie was a home invasion flick set in this insane alternate reality of America where making murder legal once a year for 12 hours was an accepted practice.
The Purge: Anarchy was more or less a survival horror flick set on the streets during The Purge. Though the second delved a little more into the politics of this world by having characters cross paths with revolutionaries opposing The Purge, part two was really just about a group of people desperately trying to survive the night in a world gone mad.
But now here we are at the third installment where we’re entering Hunger Games territory. In The Purge: Election Year, overlooking how ill-defined the concept is, is virtually impossible because the whole damn movie is built around the politics of The Purge and the New Founding Fathers’ political-religious movement that brought it about.
Eighteen years ago, Charlie Roark was the sole survivor of a Purge night home invasion. Now she’s a United States Senator on the verge of being elected President and ending the stranglehold the New Founding Fathers political movement has on America. Her single issue, of course, is ending The Purge, which she argues is really just a con job being used by corrupt, ultra-conservative, 1%’er religious fanatics to kill off the poor and help the rich get richer.
Naturally, she must be eliminated.
The very premise of The Purge: Election Year doesn’t quite fly with me. The level of fanatical fascists who could seize control of an entire nation and institute a law legalizing murder one night a year as a means of euthanizing the poor don’t exactly strike me as the sort that would feel the need to wait until Purge night to have a political rival murdered. I’m not even convinced they would even allow free elections that could potentially give voice to any political rivals.
Purging itself feels almost secondary to the plot for much of the newest installment that boils down to what felt like a retread of The Purge: Anarchy but with the focus on a boilerplate action-thriller plot about a badass dude having to protect a marked woman from henchmen working on behalf of powerful forces that need her gone before she mucks up their criminal enterprise. That the good guys end up out and about during the Hot Topic holocaust that is The Purge is merely a plot complication.
That bad assdude is the returning Frank Grillo. Unlike in Anarchy, this time he’s more of a one-note Steven Seagal-type action hero and a less compelling character for it. Last time he felt like a flesh and blood character. Now he’s just an unstoppable action hero that can suffer a devastating wound early on and show nearly no ill effects from it aside from a bloodied shirt.
To keep her safe, the Senator is put up for Purge night in a safehouse less fortified than Ethan Hawke’s home from part one with a handful of armed guards, who must have been thrilled to get to stand around outside for 12 hours hoping Purgers don’t try to kill them, let alone Neo-Nazi mercenaries in Confederate flag-adorned jumpsuits.
Here’s a crazy idea… How about locking someone this important to the future of the country in an underground bunker or solid steel time-locked panic room for 12 hours instead? Even former Vice President Dick Cheney was said to have a man-sized safe on the premises in which he could take cover in case of trouble. This set-up is such a cliché I can’t even think of a movie off the top of my head where a safehouse proved to actually be safe.
I never bought into Elizabeth Mitchell’s potential savior of the country character. I don’t know if it was her performance or how poorly the role was written that was the issue – maybe both. I found her to be a ninny that never once sounded liked a believable politician, let alone the only person whose zeal can restore liberty and justice for all. Perhaps given the ham-fisted themes of the movie making this protector of downtrodden minorities in a land of rich white evil herself a person of color who has risen to power would have made Roark a more interesting character in lieu of casting what amounts to a sexy librarian version of Elizabeth Warren.
When the opportunity arises to turn the tables on her would-be executors, in particular, their chosen candidate for the Presidency, a fire & brimstone minister who eventually sets his prolific overacting conditions to Def God One, Roark argues against doing so on the grounds that it would only make him a martyr. But the way I see it, how they intend to kill her, especially the specific way they want her to die, would make her even more of a martyr for her cause and, thusly, an even greater threat to their power, the kind that inspires uprisings in the streets. I’m clearly overthinking aspects of a plot that has not been very well thought out.
The threequel’s best and most relatable character proves to be a convenience store deli owner played by Mykelti Williamson, providing the much needed humor this franchise has typically shunned. A little of him goes a very long way. Frankly, I would have rather seen an entire movie about him and his young Mexican cohort valiantly struggling to defend his small business on Purge night from looters and that Christmas light decorated carload of Harley Quinn cosplayers taking their fandom to its logical homicidal conclusion.
Even the minor subplot about the two women risking their lives to run an ambulatory service on Purge night had the makings of a far more meaningful story than the umpteenth generic assassination/chase flick we got, even if this one happens to be set against the backdrop of Rob Zombie’s Mardi Gras.
Writer-director James DeMonaco has created a world with numerous avenues to explore; yet, he seems either uninterested or unwilling or maybe just isn’t allowed by his own New Founding Fathers to delve into those aspects in more provocative fashion. I keep wondering what a Purge movie in the hands of a Paul Verhoeven or a Larry Cohen would be like, filmmakers more willing to add real social satire and give this concept some much needed teeth. For all the talk paid to class warfare and political tyranny, the scripts remain relatively toothless.
Given how the political debate scene plays out, I’m not sure DeMonaco has ever seen one. Candidates leaving the podium, walking around the stage lecturing like Foghorn Leghorn, even walking down into the squealing audience like rock stars? Except for whoever that mystery female candidate was at the third podium who never gets to speak.
This movie could feature the most scenes of good guys getting the drop on bad guys by sneaking up on them any other movie I’ve ever seen. Isn’t that typically the other way around? Points for turning at least one cliché on its head.
Election Year is watchable, I guess, delivering enough cheap b-movie jump scares and full contact trick or treating to send some home happy. Maybe Purge fatigue is setting in for me. To me The Purge continues to be that ambitiously inept franchise with the great premise that tries as it might but cannot seem to fully capitalize on the strength of its setting.
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