The Purge: Anarchy takes the cleanest idea in modern horror and drives it straight into traffic. James DeMonaco wrote and directed the 2014 sequel to The Purge, and this time he leaves the house. The film runs 103 minutes and trades the first movie’s single-location siege for the whole Greater Los Angeles area on Purge night.
Trailer, via Blumhouse.
Frank Grillo as Sergeant Leo Barnes
Frank Grillo plays Sergeant Leo Barnes, an off-duty LAPD sergeant who lost his son Nicholas. The day before the previous year’s Purge, Warren Grass struck Nicholas while driving drunk, then was acquitted because Nicholas died on Purge night. Leo loads up and drives out for revenge. Instead he becomes the unexpected protector of four strangers. Grillo holds the film together, and he is the reason the middle hour moves at all.
Eva Sanchez and the Apartment Above
Carmen Ejogo plays Eva Sanchez, a waitress barricaded with her daughter Cali and her terminally ill father, Papa Rico. Rico has offered himself to a wealthy family in exchange for money paid to Eva and Cali. Then New Founding Fathers of America paramilitary troops gun down the superintendent Diego and take the women for their leader, Big Daddy. Leo kills the troops and wounds Big Daddy. It is the film’s best sequence, and it is over too fast.
Shane and Liz at the Grocery Store
Zach Gilford and Kiele Sanchez play Shane and Liz, an estranged married couple whose car is tampered with by a masked gang of skateboarders and dirt bikers. They end up hiding in Leo’s car. The pair exist to be rescued, and their marital trouble never earns its screen time.
Carmelo Johns and the Resistance
Michael Kenneth Williams plays Carmelo Johns, who leads an anti-Purge resistance group that hacks live feeds to denounce the New Founding Fathers of America. The resistance gives the film its one political idea. DeMonaco raises it, then drops it.
The Purge Franchise Release Order
| Film | Release date |
|---|---|
| The Purge | 2013 |
| The Purge: Anarchy | July 18, 2014 |
| The Purge: Election Year | July 1, 2016 |
What Anarchy Actually Fixes
The sequel improves on its predecessor by showing the streets instead of one living room. The paramilitary platoons, the resistance broadcasts, the subway run — all of it widens a world that needed widening. What it does not fix is the screenplay. The Purge: Anarchy grossed over $111 million, and the formula still carries it further than the writing does. Edwin Hodge returns as The Stranger, and the end credits replay archive footage of Ethan Hawke, Rhys Wakefield and Alicia Vela-Bailey from the first film.
The Purge: Anarchy is a better film than The Purge and still a middling one. The premise does the heavy lifting; the characters mostly wait to be saved by Grillo. Watch it for the apartment raid and the subway, not for Shane and Liz.
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