The First Purge (2018)
Rated R for strong disturbing violence throughout, pervasive language, some sexuality and drug use
Score: 3 out of 5
Nobody has ever accused the Purge movies of subtlety. The first one started out by using its premise of a night where all crime is legal to depict a gang of rich WASP youths trying to murder a homeless veteran who they see as subhuman, and eventually the well-meaning middle-class family trying to protect him, all while spouting political rhetoric about survival of the fittest that wouldn't be out of place coming from the pen of Ayn Rand. The sequels Anarchy and Election Year dropped all pretense and wore their populist, multiracial, "we are the 99%" politics on their sleeves -- and, in my opinion, were better movies for it, hearkening back to old-school John Carpenter flicks like Escape from New York and They Live with their mix of violent, R-rated action and in-your-face social commentary. The series always played like the flip side of another hit Blumhouse "social horror" flick, Get Out, with both running heavily on satire of American society (especially race relations) but The Purge utilizing shocking, evocative imagery to make its point whereas Get Out was more about subtlety and creeping dread. The First Purge is more of the same in that regard, this time serving as a prequel showing how the titular murder holiday came into being -- a storyline that oftentimes felt like a distraction when compared to the genuinely interesting characters down on the ground surviving the Purge, especially given that we know how that story is going to end. Even so, however, it's arguably the best film in a franchise that's never attained greatness, but which has still come a long way since the crappy first film, finding its voice in a mix of brutal action and righteous fury that helps a long way to overcoming the plot holes that have been inherent in the premise since day one.
As the title suggests, The First Purge is a movie about the very first Purge ever conducted, in this case a trial run on Staten Island. We learn that it was invented by psychologist Dr. Updale (Marisa Tomei) to solve what she thought was the problem of people being unable to release their pent-up rage at the world, but that it was soon appropriated by the rising New Founding Fathers party as an excuse to oppress the poor -- much to Dr. Updale's horror, especially once she learns that they are manipulating the Purge in order to turn it into a murder holiday, rather than the raucous but mostly harmless excuse to party that it actually winds up being at first (minus a few lone psychos). This actually does a pretty great job of answering a longtime criticism of the franchise's central conceit, that most people would use it as an opportunity to have sex with prostitutes, snort all the dope they can get their hands on, and throw massive block parties without concern for noise regulations rather than try to kill their neighbors; here, that's exactly what the residents of Staten Island do. To quote Dr. Updale herself in a line that was featured in the trailer, human nature doesn't obey the laws of politics. The government, however, sees the Purge experiment as a political device to kill off the lumpenproletariat, and so they deploy death squads composed of a mix of mercenaries, off-duty cops, and white supremacists onto Staten Island.
The big problem here is that, if you've seen any of the prior movies in the franchise, you know all this. Anarchy and Election Year in particular were all about how the Purge was being used by the powers that be to stomp their boots on the faces of the working class, destroying what little wealth they had in order to redistribute it to corporate plutocrats and the privileged classes in society. All that The First Purge does to expand this world is show us the individuals who came up with the idea, who are, not surprisingly, a mix of jackbooted fascist thugs and well-meaning but misguided scientists who realize the error of their ways as their work is manipulated and exploited by the former group. Many of these scenes with the people running the Purge felt redundant given that they didn't really say or do much that wasn't already portrayed in the last two films. I'd have liked to see more of Dr. Updale after she turns against the New Founding Fathers, especially given how she vanishes from the film about halfway in, as, without spoiling anything, I can think of some interesting and rather fun directions that both her character and the world-building as a whole could've been taken in instead of the fizzle that we ultimately got. It felt like the production could only afford an actor of Marisa Tomei's caliber for a few days, and rushed to get all of her scenes in, in which she barely interacts with the other characters outside the prologue and exists largely separate from the real action.
Fortunately, the Purge itself is still as great as it's ever been, especially once the parts with the people running the show are scaled back to just have them be shadowy bad guys. The action is split between three protagonists and stories that converge by the end, all of them interesting in their own right. First, we have Isaiah, a teenager living in the projects with his sister Nya who's turned to drug dealing to pay the bills, and decides to stay behind on Staten Island during the Purge in order to get revenge on Skeletor, a junkie who tries to rob Isaiah and badly slashes him in the process. (Skeletor, who earned that name due to his facial scarification, becomes a standout later on as a minor villain who gets some of the best scenes in the film.) Secondly, we have Nya herself, an activist who stays behind on the island for the $5,000 they're paying to everybody (not surprisingly, the poor are far more likely to take the money, immediately making Nya suspicious), and hopes to ride it out at the local church with her neighbors. Finally, we have Dmitri, a local drug kingpin and Nya's ex-boyfriend who hopes to lay low with his crew during the Purge, only for a rival gang with other ideas to exploit the Purge to try and take him out. All three, in time, come to realize what's actually going on, and eventually band together to fight for their lives.
The feel of the film before, and for some time during, the Purge is less a horror movie and more an urban crime drama, as it sets up the mayhem to come by showing our protagonists interacting with people in their community of various levels of decency. As far as "twenty minutes with jerks" goes, it did a great job getting me invested in the characters, especially given that my early predictions of where their arcs would lead them wound up being very wrong. All of the lead actors did well, with Y'Lan Noel's Isaiah and Lex Scott Davis' Nya having a great interplay as a brother and sister who stand on opposite sides of morality, but still love each other and will go to bat to save one another. The standout, however, was Joivan Wade as Dmitri. A badass anti-hero who leads his street soldiers against the rivals and, later, government goons who tried to take him out, Dmitri feels like a Grand Theft Auto protagonist, his role in the climax calling to mind John McClane as well right down to his white muscle shirt. He's a character who is forced to confront how his lifestyle and "career" are poisoning his neighborhood just as badly as the Purge is, and while I would've liked to see more setup for his turn away from evil beyond just a dressing-down speech from Nya early in the film, I can't deny that Wade knocks it out of the park once it comes, elevating the character's thin writing. I can see a long career ahead for him as an action hero if this movie is any indication, especially given that new director Gerard McMurray (series creator James DeMonaco having only written the script this time around) gives a massive boost to the action scenes. The quick cuts and jitter-cam that held back prior films are mostly gone here, with McMurray shooting some tight shootouts, chases, stalking sequences, and fisticuffs that together make for a great action-horror experience. The action was brutal, bloody, and had me on the edge of my seat, building to an epic climax the final confrontation inside the apartment, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
The big problem here is that, if you've seen any of the prior movies in the franchise, you know all this. Anarchy and Election Year in particular were all about how the Purge was being used by the powers that be to stomp their boots on the faces of the working class, destroying what little wealth they had in order to redistribute it to corporate plutocrats and the privileged classes in society. All that The First Purge does to expand this world is show us the individuals who came up with the idea, who are, not surprisingly, a mix of jackbooted fascist thugs and well-meaning but misguided scientists who realize the error of their ways as their work is manipulated and exploited by the former group. Many of these scenes with the people running the Purge felt redundant given that they didn't really say or do much that wasn't already portrayed in the last two films. I'd have liked to see more of Dr. Updale after she turns against the New Founding Fathers, especially given how she vanishes from the film about halfway in, as, without spoiling anything, I can think of some interesting and rather fun directions that both her character and the world-building as a whole could've been taken in instead of the fizzle that we ultimately got. It felt like the production could only afford an actor of Marisa Tomei's caliber for a few days, and rushed to get all of her scenes in, in which she barely interacts with the other characters outside the prologue and exists largely separate from the real action.
Fortunately, the Purge itself is still as great as it's ever been, especially once the parts with the people running the show are scaled back to just have them be shadowy bad guys. The action is split between three protagonists and stories that converge by the end, all of them interesting in their own right. First, we have Isaiah, a teenager living in the projects with his sister Nya who's turned to drug dealing to pay the bills, and decides to stay behind on Staten Island during the Purge in order to get revenge on Skeletor, a junkie who tries to rob Isaiah and badly slashes him in the process. (Skeletor, who earned that name due to his facial scarification, becomes a standout later on as a minor villain who gets some of the best scenes in the film.) Secondly, we have Nya herself, an activist who stays behind on the island for the $5,000 they're paying to everybody (not surprisingly, the poor are far more likely to take the money, immediately making Nya suspicious), and hopes to ride it out at the local church with her neighbors. Finally, we have Dmitri, a local drug kingpin and Nya's ex-boyfriend who hopes to lay low with his crew during the Purge, only for a rival gang with other ideas to exploit the Purge to try and take him out. All three, in time, come to realize what's actually going on, and eventually band together to fight for their lives.
The feel of the film before, and for some time during, the Purge is less a horror movie and more an urban crime drama, as it sets up the mayhem to come by showing our protagonists interacting with people in their community of various levels of decency. As far as "twenty minutes with jerks" goes, it did a great job getting me invested in the characters, especially given that my early predictions of where their arcs would lead them wound up being very wrong. All of the lead actors did well, with Y'Lan Noel's Isaiah and Lex Scott Davis' Nya having a great interplay as a brother and sister who stand on opposite sides of morality, but still love each other and will go to bat to save one another. The standout, however, was Joivan Wade as Dmitri. A badass anti-hero who leads his street soldiers against the rivals and, later, government goons who tried to take him out, Dmitri feels like a Grand Theft Auto protagonist, his role in the climax calling to mind John McClane as well right down to his white muscle shirt. He's a character who is forced to confront how his lifestyle and "career" are poisoning his neighborhood just as badly as the Purge is, and while I would've liked to see more setup for his turn away from evil beyond just a dressing-down speech from Nya early in the film, I can't deny that Wade knocks it out of the park once it comes, elevating the character's thin writing. I can see a long career ahead for him as an action hero if this movie is any indication, especially given that new director Gerard McMurray (series creator James DeMonaco having only written the script this time around) gives a massive boost to the action scenes. The quick cuts and jitter-cam that held back prior films are mostly gone here, with McMurray shooting some tight shootouts, chases, stalking sequences, and fisticuffs that together make for a great action-horror experience. The action was brutal, bloody, and had me on the edge of my seat, building to an epic climax the final confrontation inside the apartment, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
The Bottom Line
Two-thirds of this movie is the best that The Purge has ever been, a cathartic and intense action-horror flick in a very old grindhouse tradition, making me wish that the other third were up to that same standard. It's as subtle as a sledgehammer to the head, and the premise still kind of falls apart if you think about it too hard, but it takes that blunt attitude and runs with it, and as an action movie, it kicks a load of ass.
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