THE PURGE 2: ANARCHY (2014 -
ACTION/SUSPENSE/THRILLER) ***1/2 out of
***** OR
7 out of 10
(Ah, yes.
Purge time again. Time to blow
off some steam. Watch out, bitches...)
CAST:
Frank Grillo, Zach Gilford, Kiele Sanchez, Carmen Ejogo, Justina
Machado, Zoe Soul, Jack Conley, John Beasley.
DIRECTOR:
James DeMonaco
WARNING:
Some SPOILERS and more reasons to fortify your domicile and stock up on
the weaponry - straight ahead...
IT'S LIKE THIS:
In 2012, a low-budget movie called THE PURGE (review # 507 ) came out
and cleaned up at the box-office. Not
too surprising, since the flick had a provocative, disturbing premise that many
folks tapped into: in the
not-too-distant future, the re-formed United States of America has created a
new national holiday called PURGE NIGHT.
Before you start thinking this is some sort of annual "spring
cleaning" event, let me disabuse you of that silly notion: PURGE NIGHT is
the one night a year when all crime - including, you know, murder - is legal
and okay. As you can imagine, road rage
quickly becomes a thing of the past, because now all you have to do is take down
the license plate of the fucker who cut you off - and then wait until PURGE NIGHT
when you can track him down and dispense some awesome payback. With no repercussions whatsoever. Partay!
Unfortunately, that aforementioned low budget
which allowed THE PURGE to quickly turn a huge profit also hampered it, since
the makers didn't have the moolah to fully realize their vision of a future America so fucked-up that anything
and everything goes once a year.
Instead, we were stuck in the rather boring company of one well-to-do
family under siege from a mob of bloodthirsty "purgers." You know a suspense/thriller is in trouble
when you don't particularly care if its characters live or die.
Fortunately, the sequel corrects that. Armed with a bigger budget and equipped with
actual sympathetic characters this time, THE PURGE 2: ANARCHY is a better, more
worthwhile ride. As with the first
flick, we open during the last few hours counting down to the beginning of the
Annual Purge. Some of the moving targets
this time around include: (1) Sergeant
(Frank Grillo), sexy brooding dude who has been waiting for PURGE NIGHT all
year because he plans to pop a cap in the ass of the drunk driver who killed
his son in a hit-and-run last year; (2) Eva (Carmen Ejogo), single-mother
waitress who just wants to ride out the night with her head down; (3) Cali (Zoe
Soul), Eva's teenage daughter who is about to experience first-hand just how
nutty PURGE NIGHT can be; (4) Shane (Zach Gilford), stupid yuppie who makes the
colossal mistake of not heading for cover soon enough before the madness
starts; and (5) Liz (Kiele Sanchez), clueless chick married to Shane the Stupid
Yuppie.
Unlike the sterile suburban enclave that was the
setting of the first film, we follow these five characters as they race through
what looks like downtown Los Angeles, which - let me tell you - is the last
place on Earth I would want to be on PURGE NIGHT. I don't have to tell you that it isn't
exactly a quiet night with tea and biscuits and the BBC for our unlucky
fivesome.
Will any of them live to see the end of PURGE
NIGHT? If so, who? Sergeant? Eva? Cali? Shane? Liz? Who will help them? Who will betray them? What nasty surprises are waiting for them as
the hours wind on? Will Sergeant carry
through with his plan to kill the drunk driver who accidentally killed his
son? Or will he take the high road? How will PURGE NIGHT turn out.
Hard to say.
I'm just thankful that PURGE NIGHT isn't a real thing. Otherwise, I'd be targeted once a year by a
bunch of angry libary patrons on waiting lists for overdue books I have yet to
return. Sorry, bitches...
BUT SERIOUSLY:
As we discussed in the opening, THE PURGE was a movie with an admittedly
clever if also controversial premise that was hampered by a low budget and some
ill-advised choices in scripting. James
DeMonaco's first film could've overcome its limited budget if the script
would've been strengthened. Or, more
specifically, our bond with its principal characters. Unfortunately, the first film's protagonists
were a bunch of shallow, materialistic, wealth-obsessed suburanites who weren't
exactly fleshed out enough for us to care about. Instead, we were supposed to root for them by
default. Sorry, James, doesn't work that
way.
THE PURGE 2 has two things in its favor: a larger
budget than the first movie ($9 million vs. $3 million) and a gallery of
characters who are less privileged and pretentious, and therefore more likable
than the first group. It helps also that
they are played by such charismatic actors as Frank Grillo, Carmen Ejogo, Kiele
Sanchez, Zach Gilford, and Zoe Soul.
Grillo also gives us a substantially more appealing lead character than
Ethan Hawke did in the original. Grillo
brings a conviction to his role that Hawke couldn't. As a result, this second film has a more
emotionally-satisfying through-line.
Unlike the first film which was largely confined
to one house and its immediate surroundings, THE PURGE 2 takes us throughout
downtown L.A., both inside various buildings and out on the streets. This gives the story a variety that keeps the
film both visually and narratively interesting, unlike before with the first
movie's confined setting that could've been claustrophobic and scary but
instead just became tedious. It seems
that DeMonaco has learned from his previous mis-steps, giving us a stronger
film this time around that truly hits the mark.
In the end, I still have an issue with how THE
PURGE 1 and 2 glorify violence. But it's
easier to forgive the second film for this because it has a much more
compelling and satisfying human hook than the first one. Let's hope that THE PURGE 3, sure to go into
production because of this movie's success, improves upon its predecessors even
more. Sure, it's a very questionable
premise, but when handled correctly it can produce a solidly-good
thriller. As is the case with THE PURGE
2: ANARCHY. It's that rare sequel that
is considerably better than the first movie.
