The Purge Election Year Review

First and foremost this is film #3.  The first Purge film was new and exciting and different.  Imagine one night each year for 12 hours their are no laws.  No rules.  Anyone can murder anybody they want.  Kill, rape, mame, destroy.  You name it and it's legal.  I guess what "scares" me about these films is how close to reality this could become.  It doesn't seem far off from the world that we live in today.  Each and every one of us have a sick and twisted side to us that if this were real we would go out and "purge" ourselves by killing others.  The story was different.  I liked the first film.  I fell asleep halfway through the second film.  It seemed to me the movie studio was trying to cash in off the success of the earlier film.  We decided to give the Purge another try with a look at the third movie.

Remember Kurt Russell in Escape from New York?  The bad ass old school John Carpenter film. As I watched this film I felt more and more like this was a subtle knock off to another original flick. The film stars Frank Grillo as Leo Barnes.  Frank was in the second film also.  This time around he is a secret service type guard for hire to protect Senator Charlie Roan played by Elizabeth Mitchell.  I don't need to explain what happens other than they end up in Washington DC alone running from a group of neo Nazi mercenaries for hire to capture the senator among all of the freaks murdering one another.

Would I say this is a good movie?  I would say i'm on the fence.  Is it somewhat scary?  Not really. We've seen all this before.  Again, this is the third film.  There are some gruesome and violent scenes to appease the appetite of the movie goers that like that stuff.  Less than half way through the film you have the ending pretty much figured out.  You've seen this movie before.  The acting is fine.  Frank Grillo is up and coming.  He had a short couple of roles in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Civil War as Crossbones.  He has yet to come into his own with an iconic memorable role.  I also noticed Mykelti Williamson (aka Bubba from Forrest Gump) co-stars in the film.  The rest of the acting crew is pretty much forgettable.

Don't feel bad you didn't waste your money in the theater to see this.  The movie has an estimated 10 Million budget and made close to 80 Million in returns so expect another sequel.  I would say rent it or watch it when it comes on cable for sure.  I wasn't really sure what to expect and it wasn't a huge loss of time like Ghost Team was.  Let's hope they can keep improving on the franchise and bring it to bigger and better levels in the future.