The Purge: Anarchy
James DeManaco
James DeManaco
103 min.
Frank Grillo, Carmen Ejogo, Zoe Soul, Zach Gilford, Kiele Sanchez, Justina Machado
R for strong disturbing violence, and for language
Last year, a brilliant concept played out in a locked-house horror drama called The Purge. Strapped with a small budget, writer-director James DeManaco was left to leverage his clever premise with a film of small scope that left audiences disappointed, but had a great deal to say about class warfare in the United States. With a bigger budget, The Purge: Anarchy permits DeManaco to tackle the subject with an expansive new landscape.
From the locked-out isolationism of The Purge to the street-spanning survival drama of The Purge: Anarchy, writer and director DeManaco has enabled his sprawling idea to take seed in the imagination of the public. Set in the near future, a group of politicians came to power who created a national “holiday” called The Purge wherein all crimes, including murder, would be legal over night. Purported to be a chance for the public to take out their animalistic frustrations, the ultimate result was a population-controlling experiment that unfairly targeted poor and minority citizens without the ability to afford adequate defenses. This is the political concept behind DeManaco’s two-film (so far) franchise.
DeManaco follows five citizens (and even more periphery characters) as they struggle to survive when multiple forces are at work trying to kill them. From the corrupt New Founding Fathers to the imperious wealthy to the sick and depraved, there is no limit to the number of potential criminals on the city streets, looking for a junkie’s fix. The central figure in this outing is Sergeant Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo), an ex-military father who seeks to terminate the drunken driver who kill his son and escaped conviction for his crime. He’s been planning this for some time and the Purge of 2023 will be his opportunity.
In his path are two pairs of individuals that will trouble his Herculean quest across the city’s vast expanse, saving them out of the kindness of his heart and not the wisdom of his brain. Slowed by their incapability with small scale military procedures, Leo must weigh his genuine self-sacrificing nature versus his vengeful bloodlust and that internal conflict might just get them all killed.
Grillo is perfectly cast for this kind of role, delivering the gruff, but compassionate persona that characterizes Leo Barnes. At his side for much of the film is Carmen Ejogo as Eva Sanchez, a working mother secure in her home, but beset first by a rapist neighbor and then by paramilitary goons. With her daughter Cali (Zoe Soul), Eva tries her best to find safety and security, but would fail without the assistance of Leo Barnes. Ejogo and Soul are solid actors with a firm grip on their respective characters. Eva is strong in ways that Cali is impetuous, but Cali’s kind heart and strong convictions are equally as helpful.
The other pair trapped in one desperate situation after another are Shane (Zach Gilford) and Liz (Kiele Sanchez), a longtime couple in a relationship on the verge of collapse when their car breaks down just hours before the start of the Purge and with miles to go before they will be safe. Gilford and Sanchez are fine in their roles, though both fall prey to the same blandness of character that gave Lena Headey trouble in the first film. Their characters’ story adds to the pathos of the film’s bleak and somber tone.
DeManaco’s first film had the benefit of a compelling premise. That premise provides a backbone for this sequel, but it’s the character arcs that bolster Anarchy‘s ability to resonate with the audience. Juggling three primary and a pair of secondary story arcs, DeManaco carefully balances the desire of the audience for the rampant mayhem promised by the concept with the socio-political nature of the film’s commentary about wealth inequality, government disdain for alterations to their carefully-crafted notions and a genuine since of compassion and humanity.
The Purge: Anarchy isn’t for fans of the blood-drenched branch of horror offerings that seem all too frequent in recent years. It settles for a pensive, contemplative state that while a bit heavy-handed at times still resonates simply and evocatively. Being quasi-futuristic enables the film to dig into the tropes of science fiction films and present a potential, and disturbing future for the people in the United States and in other nations where wealth inequality and poor race and religious relations threaten to upend decades of modestly peaceful co-existence. On the surface, the film might not seem like an important morality tale, but that’s essentially what it ends up being.
Unlikelies: Everything
Review Written
August 19, 2014
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