With the current political climate of Democrats and Republicans at each other’s throats and mass-shootings happening so often people barely seem shocked anymore, it should come as no surprise that a third Purge movie comes during an election year. Especially this election year, which feels like a precursor to an actual Purge. So give it up for the “life imitates art, art imitates life” scenario with The Purge: Election Year.
In 2025, two years after choosing not to kill the drunk driver who killed his son, police sergeant Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo) becomes head of security for U.S. Senator Charlene Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell), the front-runner in the next presidential election. She’s vowed to eliminate The Purge after losing her family to sadistic murderers 15 years earlier, and Barnes continues to campaign against The Purge after the deaths he witnessed during his night on the streets two years ago. But the government and the NFFA (New Founding Fathers of America) placed people in Roan’s house to betray her and force her and Barnes out into the streets, where they must fight for survival.
I have always been fascinated by the idea behind these movies; a world that has gotten so bad that once a year for 12 hours the American people are set free to commit all sorts of crimes for their amusement. Of course as the movies keep moving along we learn that The Purge is really a population control move by the government to keep the rich in power and wipe out the poor. It’s unfortunate that by the third movie the franchise still lacks the punch a story like this could have. I can’t put my finger on what’s missing, but something is. All three movies feel like they’re close to saying something very important about the state of our current society, but then all three just miss the mark by an inch. They’re still enjoyable and have points to make, but not the points they should be making.
This new movie really hits home with the message that the rich are out to get the poor. It’s what Senator Roan’s whole platform is structured on. She feels it’s time to stop The Purge and get American back to how it used to be, where people lived in freedom, not fear. Of course the NFFA are against that, they love the new America because it keeps them in power. The NFFA is scared that Roan is correct; that about 85% of Americans feel The Purge should be stopped. But once that genie has been unleashed on the masses, how do you put it back in the bottle? I guess that’s what a fourth movie could be about, but really, I think The Purge franchise has said all it has to say at this time.
Once the Senator and Barnes have escaped her house and are on the run they find themselves being pursued by NFFA’s agents and dealing with all the crazy that happens on Purge night in general. Conveniently, plot-wise, they end up with another group of people just trying to survive the night as well: Joe Dixon, a deli owner (Mykelti Williamson), his co-worker, Marcos (Joseph Julian Soria) and Laney (Betty Gabriel) who have their own trouble to contend with, but they soon realize that for their safety, and the safety of America, they need to band together to keep Senator Roan alive.
Each actor brings his or her own motives and talent to the movie. Frank Grillo and Elizabeth Mitchell work well together and have a real connection that works on screen. Their motivations for who they are and what they do is made very clear, and they play it with excellent execution. Williamson is part comic relief but also the middle-class every-day-man most of the audience can relate to. What he says is one part comedy and one part anger, but it’s all truth.
Soria’s character Marcos is the immigrant who moved to America for a better life, became a citizen, and believes in America, the place where anything can happen. He’s the hope for a version of the US (the movie one and the real one) where we all get our heads out of our asses and become one mind for the future. He was given some of the best thought-provoking lines of the movie.
And then there’s Laney, played by Betty Gabriel, who is just a badass. Her story was the most interesting of the movie and it’s shame we don’t get to spend as much time with her as we should. The movie is about the senator, but more time for Laney would have been great. In conversations you get the idea that she was once a feared person in her hood. It’s never spelled out, but it feels as if she once took The Purge very seriously, and was very good at Purging. Now once a year on Purge night she drives around in a medical van helping people who have been hurt. You get the impression she is making amends for some mistakes in her life. It’s never said, but there’s more to her story than what’s being told. And that’s a shame, because she was way more interesting that any other character in the flick.
One of the biggest issues with the movie is just how “crazy” the Purgers are. Its like once the restrictions of law are gone people just go savage and become Batman villains. The costumes, the way they act, and some of the ideas people come up with for how to kill, all just becomes too comical way too quick. Yes it’s a movie, so there needs to be some suspension of disbelief, but at times it pushes things so crazy, you end up laughing, therefore losing the point that could have been made.
The characters in the NFFA are also comical, mustache-twirling villains. Their reasons are made very clear and you never once feel they can have redemption. The further into the movie we get, the more zealous neo-nazi they become, to the point where the main antagonist gets so insane with his acting it becomes hard to take him seriously as an actor, let alone as a character. He ramps up his “Hitler” type performance where it just becomes distracting. And once that happens it’s hard to take anything the movie says seriously.
This movie does manage to clear up some stuff that was never answered in the first two films. Such as: does just America Purge or is it a world Purge? Its just America, and something is definitely being implied by that. We learn that many travelers from around the world now vacation to the US just to kill: as it’s said by one European, “nothing more American than killing.” It’s a bold statement, but a sad and almost true one nowadays.
I’m not going to turn a movie review into a piece on gun control or anything, but the movie does raise some questions. But maybe not the right ones though. It’s entertaining for sure, and that’s good, but it could have been so much more. I once again feel this concept of a movie is great and really could say something and make a point. Sadly once again, it misses it.
