Review of The Purge: Anarchy (2014) by Dietter A — 23 Nov 2014

Once again, love, love, love this concept but maybe because of that I have too many ideas of where the movie should go, so when it doesn't, I'm more disappointed than usual.

I really think this is a novel idea quite literally. In novel form, one could fully follow people through this 12 hr period and maybe discuss some of the lead-up to the event and the aftermath. Condensed to movie that runs less than two hours, it's just tough to get anything than the action.

In this movie, you have basically three sets of people to follow: a vanilla couple who gets stranded minutes before The Purge begins, a young mother and daughter pair who are the target of something bigger than The Purge, and a former cop who has his own battles but is stopped by goodness within.

To keep this short, I like some of what they did here. You have the black guys who are anti-purge and will break the rules to get it shut down because they see who it primarily affects...the poor. You have the government who has decided not enough people are purging, so it takes matters into its own hands. And you have the wealthy who have their own way of going about The Purge.

Those three ideas are actually pretty great and, again, would play out great in a lengthy novel. In the movie, it's all mushed together and becomes a bit contrived. We don't really see the whole picture.

But, I got emotionally invested in the purdy girl (when don't I), and I liked the former cop. I could nitpick some items but this is not a movie to take over seriously to begin with so let's skip that and enjoy it for what it is.