“The Purge: Election Year” is the worst film I’ve seen in theaters all year.
The previous film in the series, “The Purge: Anarchy” set up the infrastructure for "Election Year" to be another great film in the "Purge" series. Instead of getting another enticing insight in a unique location in America during the Purge, we get a backwash of the previous film’s setting in urban America, paired up with a ton of poor performances and mind boggling inconsistencies.
Although the first film in this series was truly terrible, which followed rich families during the Purge, the second film was what the first should have been. It followed the real grit of the Purge in working class America. There were characters seeking to solely survive, some looking to Purge and go insane on the streets, and a few who sought revenge. On top of the variety of motivations, there were squadrons of armies annihilating entire sections of poor housing in bad neighborhoods. The story was truly intense, and although not perfect, it was a good film.
This third film, on the other hand, was full of garbage acting and had a terrible plot line.
The story revolves around Leo Barnes, one of the main characters of the previous film who sought revenge against a man who killed his son in a drunk driving accident. Since the previous film, he cleaned up his act and became the head of security for Senator Charlie Roan, an independent female presidential candidate with a platform revolving around abolishing the Purge.
Although they know people will obviously want to kill her on Purge night due to her platform, Roan was very adamant about staying in her urban private residence, because she believed if she were to hide in a bunker instead of staying with the main populous, she would lose support for her campaign. As crazy as her idea sounded, Barnes bent under her pressure like a wet noodle and decided to reinforce her house with security cameras and bullet proof plates for the windows and doors in an effort to keep her safe.
Of course, the film wouldn’t progress if the makeshift fortress wasn’t breached, or else it would be a very boring two hours. After the breach, Roan and Barnes scour the streets in search for a safe haven to survive the night.
The film also follows a deli shop owner and his employees, who at first try to protect the shop, but when their story arch converges with the senator’s, they protect her instead. The deli shop owner, Joe Dixon, was a stereotypical black man who was both intimidating and had subtly funny quips throughout the film. His employee, Marcos, was as static as a piece of cardboard in terms of character development. He followed whatever Dixon wanted him to do, except for one instance when Dixon wanted to protect the deli when blood thirsty machine gun killers were trying to break in from the back door.
The story was flawed from start to finish. The major problem with the plot was how the writers refused to capitalize on interesting plot points they planted throughout the film and the series.
For instance, in the second film, the "kill squadrons" had giant semi-trucks with their trailers holding a man operating a mounted machine gun. They would stop the truck whenever they saw people in the streets, and the guy inside these trailers would unload the large clip on everyone in sight. The addition of these in “The Purge: Anarchy” was one of the most intense and suspenseful parts of the film.
The third film decided they didn’t need to utilize what they were building on from the second film. Although there was mention of these trucks, and some of the main characters even saw the semi’s traveling across town when the group split up, we didn’t get to see the carnage, the true brutality that came with these dastardly vessels of war. Instead, the movie used a cop out with some side characters saying “We’ll take care of them” while holding handguns.
Another instance was how the film absolutely refused to build on the intensity of the trailer of “Election Year.” The trailer showed people in American founding father masks with sharp blades, giant guillotines, and people with machine guns walking around a car covered in Christmas lights. These three instances took up about half of the main trailer, and only about 30 minutes of the film at most.
My main problem with the film was how bland everything was. Most of the characters were static archetypes who made me bored to all ends. If the director would have stuck to the successful points of Anarchy, it would have been at least an adequate follow up to the suspenseful thriller.
The director, James DeMonaco, wrote and directed all three films in this series. He is fantastic at cinematography and creating hype for a film, as seen in the film and its trailer. He proved to have potential as a decent story teller with “Anarchy,” but it’s obvious through his inconsistency he needs to develop and mature as a film creator. His lack of attention to detail is what held him back in “Election Year.”
Maybe if this film wasn’t a Blumehouse Production, the story could have been redeemable. Blumehouse is famous for scraping the bottom of the barrel with their horror productions to make the maximum amount of profit with the least possible amount spent. The “Paranormal Activity” series is the most prominent example from them, with so many renditions of the same flavorless story redone over and over again just to flip a wide profit.
If the Purge series was under a different production company, it might have been able to flourish as an action/horror film regardless of whether DeMonaco was directing or not.
Save your money. Unless you’re easily swayed by cheap thrills, this film and most other Blumehouse productions, are not worth your time.
