Review of The Purge: Anarchy (2014) by Cinemadame . — 13 May 2016

Good action film/thriller. Doesn't do anything spectacular but action scenes are plausible (and tense) and the political overture is definitely interesting, especially considering current news.

I've read several reviews of this film and all of them seem to think that the movie was supposed to be some prolific piece action-rhetoric or something. I think the people who take the movie in this manner are really not understanding what the point of it is.

The movie isn't trying to make a big sweeping political claim (ala Ayn Rand). Its just trying to set the context for the action being depicted on screen. If you're looking for truth or answers to the many questions like: "Why did anyone think this was a good idea? How did we ever pass this bill? etc" you will likely be disappointed. The movie doesn't try to answer these questions except to say that certain people have a sort of darker character and morality set-and those people would not be turned off at the idea of murder being legal for 12 hours a year.

There are several parallels to draw to movies such as The Warriors or Escape from New York, but I feel like the context of the story was at least equally as compelling, despite the film itself not having the finesse of Jon Carpenter film.

As far as Gore/Gross-Out stuff is concerned, the movie really is pretty tame. They tend to cut away from scenes that involve dismemberment, almost like someone telling a sexual story in front of their parents and leaving out details/substituting words to cushion the blow. Despite this, I don't feel like it was entirely out of place in the film. This movie isn't a shock-value gore-fest, so if you don't like those movies you should be relatively fine here.

Acting wise, I feel like The Sergeant (lead male character) was well acted, but the character himself felt a little flatter than I would've preferred. The other actors who effectively are protected by the Sergeant throughout the movie tend to be more or less forgottable, however they aren't annoying and don't detract from the story. A personal highlight for me was being able to see Michael K. Williams (Omar - The Wire). Despite his character not having many lines, I feel like he was a great choice for that role in the film.

Overall I'd definitely say it was worth watching and I'm certainly looking forward to the next installment.