The Purge: Election Year

"The Purge" films are interesting animals. A fascinating (but incredibly eye-rolling) idea has been trucking along for three films now without ever actually getting to the interesting stuff. Set in a world where the country is run by the "New Founding Fathers of America," the Purge holiday was introduced where nothing is illegal for twelve hours one day a year. During that time you can steal, rape, murder or whatever you want to your heart's content. However, in creator James DeMonaco's endless trilogy the only thing explored is the fact that apparently the entire country is inhabited by serial killers. And in the third installment "The Purge: Election Year" this concept is only intensified.

Never has DeMonaco examined how the Purge was put into place. (Apparently this film was to be a prequel but when "Purge:Anarchy" star Frank Grillo said "yes" to this installment, they went with a sequel instead.) Nowhere does DeMonaco examine how people go through their daily lives knowing their friends, relatives, and neighbors have murdered people in cold blood - and gleefully so. But what also could have been explored is other illegal activities such as theft. Imagine someone hacking into computers of huge companies or even the government and bankrupting them. How would that affect the economy? How does the blatant crime affect businesses? Hospitals? Do people go back to work the next day? How can they when businesses are torn apart? And quite honestly, this film makes reference to the length of time the Purge has existed (over eighteen years) so wouldn't Americans have figured out how to protect themselves by now? Not only that, in this installment we see foreigners coming to America so they can have a Murder holiday. There is one scene where our main characters are attacked by a mob of foreigners only to have them all get blown away. What is the message here?

I could go on and on about how ridiculous the premise is and how hard it is to maintain some level of a suspension of disbelief, but my point will most likely be moot. Let's just say in this round, faithful agent Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo) is sent to protect Senator Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell) who is running for President against the New Founding Fathers and plans on getting rid of the Purge. One must question how long the New Founding Fathers have been in power. How many terms do these weirdos get if this has been going on for over eighteen years?

Anyway, Senator Roan and Barnes get attacked in her protected home by a traitor and must go out into the streets to face the Purgers and try to remain safe until morning. But when the New Founding Fathers are the ones trying to off the poor Senator, their actions seem to be pointless.

There are some side characters that try to add some semblance of caring into the mix including a former bad girl turned saint named Laney (Betty Gabriel) and good guy Joe Dixon (Mykelti Williamson) who runs a convenience store. Joe has a run-in with two gals in Catholic Girl uniforms (of course) who try to steal a candy bar from his store. He and Laney fend them off, but that just makes them return during the Purge to exact revenge. Why? Because she didn't get her candy bar. No, seriously. That's the storyline there. The girl, who is bloody and acting a fool, comes back to "get her goddamned candy bar." It's phenomenally dumb in a truly idiotic film.

Every actor takes the silly script far too seriously to the point where you can't help but chuckle at even the most horrific things. There comes a point where you watch the carnage pile up and you wonder why you're even sitting there watching it. It's not really that entertaining and in a world where mass-shootings are becoming far too commonplace, spending time in a darkened movie theatre watching American citizens cheerfully slaughter each other just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Sadly, the film is left wide-open for a sequel so expect yet another installment soon. Or purge yourself and go see "The BFG" instead.