Perhaps the most impressive thing about The Purge: Anarchy is just how fast this sequel to last year’s break-out hit (though critical failure) The Purge has been produced and packaged for mass consumption. The appeal offers little more than the titillations of a first-person shooter video game. It’s sometime in the near future, and the laws of the United States’ have been rewritten by a cabal of Fox News-types calling themselves the “New Founding Fathers.” The most shocking innovation: an annual purge, when, for 12 hours, the rule of law is suspended and everyone can do whatever he or she wants without any consequences. This creates a night of murder and mayhem, a cross between the cynical peace keeping of The Hunger Games and the marauding blood lust of A Clockwork Orange. And even though the film tries to set up tension between the rich and the poor — the 1 percent, and the 99 — it really splits the country into three classes: those out to kill, those trying to save their skins, and the wealthy, who can afford to fold murder into the pageantry of galas and dinner parties.
The Purge: Anarchy’s hyper-charged, action freak-out would be so much easier to swallow without its insistent and ham-fisted political head-bashing. It doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum you fall on, what’s offensive about the film’s political pretensions is how sloppy and senseless its allegory actually is – pseudo-populist pandering at its worst. Thankfully, the film understands that its real appeal is packed in the horror-tinged action. This centers mainly around a quartet of good guys who find themselves – somewhat implausibly – stuck outside on the dangerous night. They have to dodge a barrage of enemies — from a gang trolling the streets with a high caliber machine gun to the wealthy, who bid top dollar to have the privilege to kill random people. In the mayhem, there are fleeting moments of excitement, and I suppose that’s all we can really hope for from a movie this insipid.
