"The Purge" (2013) (MY REVIEW) introduced an American society when the crime rate was practically zero because of the annual "Purge" which made all crimes legal for 12 hours each year. "The Purge 2: Anarchy" (2014) (MY REVIEW) brought us out into the streets during Purge Day. It went into the future for "The Purge 3: Election Year" (2016) (MY REVIEW) to a 2040 election to decide the fate of the Purge. Now, this fourth installment went back into the past -- to when the initial experiment for societal cleansing was done.
In 2014, because of massive civil unrest, a radical new political party called the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA) gained political power in the US. NFFA Chief of Staff Arlo Sabian (Patch Darragh) had been assigned to monitor an experiment designed by Dr. May Updale (Marisa Tomei) that will allow citizens will be allowed to release their hate and commit any crime for 12 hours within the confines of the NYC borough of Staten Island. Those who agreed to participate and be monitored will be paid $5000.
The NFFA observed that the citizens were not really participating in the experiment. There was only one insane drug addict nicknamed Skeletor seriously out to kill. Most citizens though chose to stay out of harm's way and instead gathered in churches or held street parties. Sabian was alarmed of the possible failure of his experiment so he decided to intervene and send in his mercenary troops in masks and hoods to sow anarchy in the streets to initiate the full-scale purge killings.
The main characters in this installment were black drug pushers and addicts -- Skeletor (Rotimi Paul), Dmitri (Y'lan Noel), Capital A (Christian Robinson) and the youngster Isaiah (Joivan Wade). The women characters were led by Nya (Lex Scott Davis), an anti-Purge activist who also happened to be Isaiah's sister and Dmitri's girlfriend. She and her retinue of friends, Luisa (Lauren Velez), Selina (Kristen Solis) and the excitable comic relief Dolores (Mugga). These were all very stereotypes who were not particularly interesting nor worth empathizing with. They are nobodies -- precisely what the script intended them to be.
There was only one actor whose name I knew and that was Marisa Tomei in the role of Dr. May Updale, the so-called "Architect" of the Purge. With her blond hair, I did not recognize the actress at all when I first saw the character. I was more interested in how she came up with this harebrained idea of the Purge as the solution to society's ills, but this type of scientific exposition never came. Her fate was the result of her political naivete.
The supposedly "shocking" revelation of what the NFFA official did to get the Purge going was not exactly shocking. It is sad to realize that we seem to have been so inured already to these underhanded tactics of dirty politicians do to get their way. (Remember, politicians are conveniently exempted from the Purge!) Extrapolating the scenario in the film into our real-life society, where impoverished drug addicts are found dead left and right, is not a far-fetched stretch. Reality is in fact far scarier than this film could ever be. 3/10.
There was only one actor whose name I knew and that was Marisa Tomei in the role of Dr. May Updale, the so-called "Architect" of the Purge. With her blond hair, I did not recognize the actress at all when I first saw the character. I was more interested in how she came up with this harebrained idea of the Purge as the solution to society's ills, but this type of scientific exposition never came. Her fate was the result of her political naivete.
The supposedly "shocking" revelation of what the NFFA official did to get the Purge going was not exactly shocking. It is sad to realize that we seem to have been so inured already to these underhanded tactics of dirty politicians do to get their way. (Remember, politicians are conveniently exempted from the Purge!) Extrapolating the scenario in the film into our real-life society, where impoverished drug addicts are found dead left and right, is not a far-fetched stretch. Reality is in fact far scarier than this film could ever be. 3/10.
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