The following article may contain spoilers and is written as a personal review of "Purge: Election Year" and should not be taken as end all be all of opinions.
“Purge: Election Year” was the third installment of the Purge saga, a franchise with, in my opinion, a shaky start but an entertaining and original idea. This being the final installment, it quite nicely puts a bow on the series overall. Making a solid $60.3+ million in the box office to date, it might not have beat its release date competition Finding Dory – unsurprisingly -- but it definitely found its place. The film’s setting is America circa 2020s and is a distorted reality where in order to achieve economic balance and ultimate peace within the country, the government group, the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA), have taken to allowing one night per year where all crime is legal. Weapons above a class four, mostly explosives, were prohibited and political figures ranking of class 10 were off limits. The second installment, “Purge: Anarchy” released in 2014, introduces the audience to those who oppose the Purge and inserts the ethical element of the Purge on lower economic class families. It puts in perspective that those in the upper class have an unfair advantage and introduces that the Purge is really a culling of lower class families implemented by the government.
This comes to a close in “Purge: Election Year,” which follows Senator Charlie Roan. Roan is campaigning for presidency with a promise for the end of the Purge. The opposing candidate and the board of NFFA members conspire to remove the competition during the Purge by revoking the personnel restriction, making everyone free game. Roan and her security specialist, none other than Sergeant Leo Barnes from “Purge: Anarchy” trek through and attempt to survive the night; making friends along the way including: a shop keeper, his employee, and a woman with a mysterious past. The end of the movie shows Roan winning the presidency and pans out on an American flag valiantly flapping in the breeze.
The movie itself was well done, Blumhouse using its $10 million budget to its fullest extent; I feel that it was a solid rap-up of the trilogy. It showed a bit more of the struggle of the lower classes, posed ethical struggles, and was a metaphor on something in America-- probably capitalism, it always is. That being said, I am sad to see the franchise go down so soon. I feel there could’ve been more explored within the universe of the Purge. Especially with the introduction of murder tourists or people from other countries who come to America to Purge. I feel the franchise could have gone on longer had the put some time between the settings of each film, and follow a different story-line each time. Although I say this I also realize that that could have tipped the scales and pushed people to simply say “Not another Purge movie.”
A few things that bothered me about the movie include the death that everyone saw coming, the lovable shop keep with a past. When the movie started, as soon as the friendship bond between the shop keep and his employee was shown --I knew that a friendship like that doesn’t come out of a thriller unscathed. Another thing that bothered me about the franchise in general would be the focus on murder. The staple alarm and speech at the beginning of each Purge Night, a recognizable trademark of the movies, always amplifying the importance that murder is legal in the movie. What I want to see is the bank robbers, the people letting animals out of zoos, and the jaywalkers who are up to no good but don’t have it in them to murder. Murder is not the only crime. An important thing to keep in mind while watching is to put yourself in suspended disbelief when it comes to the Purge Universe; accept that some things won’t be answered – for example how they know if class four weapons are used, how consequences of actions bled into everyday life after Purge Night, or how they looked Martha in the eye after Martha tried to kill you Purge Night. The third movie in particular makes me question how big of an opposition there could be to the Purge, if the government had been enacting a culling of the lower class for several years, how were there still struggling families?
Overall, in my opinion, the film series was well made, lacking anything cheesy, and explored a unique idea posing moral questions on viewers but left a few questions that may never get answered. I’m left curious as to how America held itself post Purge years and curious as to what the first Purge was like. I personally would have been a serious jaywalker on Purge Night and definitely would’ve parked along a posted sidewalk between the hours of 2 A.M. and 6 A.M.. Watch out America, I’m dangerous.
