{"id":9832,"date":"2024-12-10T17:56:56","date_gmt":"2024-12-10T22:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9832"},"modified":"2024-12-10T17:56:56","modified_gmt":"2024-12-10T22:56:56","slug":"the-purge-election-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/10\/the-purge-election-year\/","title":{"rendered":"The Purge: Election Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Purge: Election Year<\/strong> (2016)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Action-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 103 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (disturbing bloody violence, strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James DeMonaco\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: James DeMonaco\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Nathan Whitehead\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jacques Jouffret\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 1, 2016 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Frank Grillo, Elizabeth Mitchell, Mykelti Williamson, Joseph Julian Soria, Betty Gabriel, Edwin Hodge, Kyle Secor, Raymond J. Barry, Terry Serpico, Ethan Phillips, Adam Cantor, Liza Colon-Zayas, Brittany Mirabile, Juani Feliz, Christopher James Baker, David Aaron Baker, Jared Kemp, Naeem Garcia.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $79.2M (US)\/$118.6M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0So much for the Curse of Three. The Purge: Election Year<\/strong>, the third installment in the dystopian action-horror series, is the best one yet! As you can tell by the title- subtlety isn\u2019t one of the series\u2019 strong suits- it\u2019s intended to push the buttons of American voters who will no doubt easily draw a parallel to what\u2019s currently going on in the political arena. The storyline is eerily (and likely deliberately) timely with echoes of Trump\u2019s Let\u2019s Make America Great Again and Black Lives Matter. We\u2019re supposed to see the Purge movies as social satire in how it envisions America if the 1% (of which Trump is a charter member) assumed leadership. I didn\u2019t hear anybody laughing at the showing I attended.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If you\u2019ve seen the previous two movies (if you\u2019re interested in Election Year<\/strong>, you probably have), then you know the premise. In the very near-future, the NFFA (New Founding Fathers of America aka the 1%) rebooted the country. Crime and unemployment are way down. How? Once a year (March 21), everything including murder is legal for 12 hours (7pm-7am). Americans are urged to \u201cpurge and purify\u201d as a way of showing their patriotism. Basically, it\u2019s a night of chaos, bloodshed and death. Citizens take to the streets to hunt down human prey. Of course, there\u2019s an agenda behind the government-sanctioned holiday. The ones most targeted during the annual Purge are the poor, homeless and marginalized, most of whom are minorities. By reducing their numbers, certain rates are kept low, the government spends less on welfare and those in charge have more money with which to line their pockets.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In The Purge: Election Year<\/strong>, the NFFA has good reason to be concerned. It seems that Senator Charlie Roan (Mitchell, Santa Clause 2 & 3) has an excellent chance of defeating Edwidge Owens (Secor, Homicide: Life on the Street) in the upcoming Presidential election. If she wins, she plans to do away with the annual Purge for good. 18 years earlier, she watched as her family was slaughtered on Purge Night. Naturally, the NFAA can\u2019t risk such a thing so they lift the ban on killing government officials for the upcoming Purge and arrange for Charlie\u2019s murder at the hands of a paramilitary group led by a vicious neo-Nazi (Serpico, Hannibal).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Not one to be intimidated, she decides to spend the night in her own home even though her chief of security, Leo Barnes (Grillo reprising his role from Anarchy), is dead-set against it. Of course, somebody betrays her and the house is attacked, sending Barnes and Charlie on the run.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meanwhile, deli owner Joe Dixon (Williamson, Forrest Gump) and his assistant Marcos (Soria, Max) must protect his store from looters after his insurance company raised his rates the day before the Purge. Unable to afford it, he\u2019s on his own. Eventually, the senator and her protector find their way to the store. Joining them in their fight for survival is Laney (Gabriel), an EMT who rides around in a makeshift ambulance on Purge Night rendering aid to the wounded. They must stay ahead of the neo-Nazi and his men. At one point, they cross paths with Dante Bishop (Hodge reprising his role from the previous films), an anti-Purge activist with a plan to put Charlie in the winner\u2019s circle come Election Day.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The Purge: Election Year<\/strong> is great, violent, bloody fun. It reminds me of early John Carpenter; all that\u2019s missing is the pulsating synthesizer score. You can read into it what you will. I heard somebody say that it\u2019s a representation of America under President Trump (should he actually win). That\u2019s one way of looking at it, I suppose. The events of the last couple of years- e.g. Ferguson, terrorist attacks, etc.- lend context to the movie. But one need not consider such weighty matters in order to enjoy The Purge: Election Year<\/strong>. I won\u2019t lie. I loved the violence. LOVED IT! There are shootings, stabbings and beating galore. In one scene, a character runs down a couple of looters with her vehicle. Axes, machetes and chainsaws are wielded. Blood splatters, oozes and flies. The death toll is pretty high. It\u2019s thrilling to watch the disenfranchised heroes fight back against the system that works hard to oppress them. And yes, I can see the irony in cheering on the very same behaviors encouraged by Purge supporters.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Like I said, it\u2019s the best Purge movie yet. Returning writer-director James DeMonaco goes all out for this one. In addition to the lift on the government official ban, foreigners are coming over to take part in the festivities. The Purge: Election Year<\/strong> is as close to a 70s\/80s exploitation flick as we\u2019re likely to get. Despite its satirical aspirations, it\u2019s pure cinematic trash. By that, I mean the good kind of trash, the kind that\u2019s entertaining. Its modicum of intelligence is a bonus. The acting is about what you\u2019d expect. It\u2019s no better or worse than any movie of this ilk. The bad guys are slimy; the good guys have mad fighting skills. What more do you need? In a summer movie season marked by one disappointment after another, The Purge: Election Year<\/strong> delivers on what it promises. It is what it is, exactly. It\u2019s the type of movie that brings out viewers\u2019 psychotic sides. I had a blast.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Purge: Election Year (2016)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Action-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 103 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (disturbing bloody violence, strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: James DeMonaco\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: James DeMonaco\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Nathan Whitehead\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Jacques Jouffret\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 1, 2016 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Frank Grillo, Elizabeth Mitchell, Mykelti Williamson, Joseph Julian Soria, Betty Gabriel, Edwin Hodge, Kyle Secor, Raymond J. Barry, Terry Serpico, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/The-Purge-Election-Year-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9832"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10092,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9832\/revisions\/10092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}