The Purge: Election Year is the worst movie of the decade. This combines the worst traits of American filmmaking - the excess, the preaching, racism, sexism, and uncontrollable need to dress up trash as satire - to make a depraved, incoherent stain on decency. And I'm ashamed to have watched it.
The Presidential election is between NFFA (New Founding Fathers of America) candidate The Minister/Donald Trump (Kyle Secor) and Senator Charlie Roan/Bernie Sanders (Elizabeth Mitchell), who's promised to abolish the Purge. She claims the one-night endorsement of crime is a mass execution of minorities and the poor disguised as moral cleansing.
On Purge Night, Roan is attacked by NFFA-hired mercenaries (sporting Nazi, Confederate, and probably "I always park in two spaces" patches). She escapes with the help of bodyguard Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo) and together, they have to survive the night, fighting off mercenaries, Purgers, and the NFAA. Along the way, they befriend a deli owner (Mykelti Williamson) and his employee (Joseph Julian Soria), a doctor who drives around caring for victims (Betty Gabriel), and a band of revolutionaries whose leader (Edwin Hodge) wants to take out the NFFA in a less diplomatic fashion.
To this franchise's one credit, the world continues to grow and explore new possibilities. This comes at the detriment of not explaining the details from previous movies. In a Hunger Games-style snafu, we know nothing of the NFFA - who started it; why The Purge and not any other idea was approved; why the American public got on-board; what catastrophe led people to such desperation to accept it; how businesses function with the annual steep, sudden loss of labor. This is the third movie of the franchise, and writer/director James DeMonaco (who's helmed all the movies) continues to dance around these essential world-building questions.
DeMonaco puts the same care into the characters. When not spewing such cringe-worthy lines as "Is the c--t close?" and "I've come for my candy bar!," they decide to commit every stupid thing possible. They stay outdoors in the middle of the street, just watching an old woman burn her husband to death or a young woman in a pig costume take a chainsaw to a door. Did I mention that Roan refuses to barricade herself, despite being a highly controversial presidential candidate and having the security to do so? It's all in the name of experiencing what most people do, she says. Personally, I want a president who appreciates the value of self-preservation.
Grillo and Mitchell do what they can with the material, looking defeated. Others, such as Williamson, have more confidence, but loathsome dialogue. As the deli owner, Williamson delivers such enlightening comic nuggets as "There are a whole bunch of Negros coming this way. and we're looking like a big ol' bucket of fried chicken!"
I'm writing this a few days after the cop shooting here in Dallas. A veteran took to the streets and murdered, fueled by a twisted sense of vengeance. The movie would have you consider this an unfortunate parallel, a real-life example of the psychopathic violence it seemingly rails against. But here's the difference. Thursday night, I read stories of grief, pain, and anger, but just as many of resolve, healing, and above all, hope. In Election Year, there is no hope.
You may say "Well, this America is supposed to be too far gone!" To that, I ask "Do we want it to be?" Should we blindly accept, with the film's hedonistic celebration, the worldview that America is destined for a self-destructive class war? I'd be more accepting if DeMonaco took his subject seriously. But the killer in a George Washington mask gives me room for pause.
This is grisly and sensational, without the charisma, style, intelligence, or substance that can make it permissible. When there's innocent blood on the streets, this gleeful brand of nihilism is irresponsible. Don't jump the gun and think I'm calling for a ban. But for those calling this simple, crazy escapism, don't kid yourselves. Call it what it is: TRASH.
Thank you all for reading. I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.
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