THE outlandish premise of a 12-hour period annually where murder and other crimes are legalised continues in the second instalment of The Purge.
But while the first film was set up with a claustrophobic home invasion slant, the second features disparate characters who have to band together to ensure they survive the nightmare in the streets of Los Angeles in the not-so-distant future.
Ill-fated young couple Shane (played by Zach Gilford) and Liz (Kiele Sanchez) are stranded after experiencing car troubles. Then there’s Eva (Carmen Ejogo) and her daughter Cali (Zoe Soul) who are mercilessly evicted from their apartment.
Fortunately the four have the good luck to either run into or be saved by cool lone wolf-with-a-conscience Leo (Frank Grillo), who puts his own mission on hold in order to babysit them.
The group must then learn to trust each other and to rely on Leo’s directions and lethal aim with firearms after his armoured car breaks down on the mean streets.
They wander through various dangerous situations while being chased by a group of mask-wearing vigilantes and a paramilitary-type force armed with heavy duty weapons.
It’s a free-for-all bloodbath that involves common street thugs, closet sociopaths and the rich elite who have a taste for treating humans as prey in a hunting game.
James DeMonaco returns as writer, director and producer of this survival horror thriller and frames the story in a dark and grim manner. But although there’s a sense of dread around every corner, the building anticipation doesn’t always give way to satisfying thrills.
It doesn’t help either that the good guys never run out of bullets while the baddies can never shoot straight.
It sure seems like DeMonaco was given a bigger canvas to play out his social allegory but unfortunately, it falls short of anything epic.
Instead The Purge: Anarchy has more of a B-Grade feel with somewhat irritating paper-thin characters and a simplistic and fractured storyline.
Grillo tries his best to carry the film through and is decent enough as the typical tortured hero. The problem is that it doesn’t know what it wants to be. There are elements of action and horror but unfortunately it doesn’t quite excel in either.
Those into gore and grand guignol ultra-violence, seen in such movies like the Saw and Hostel franchises, will find this one too tame.
The action sequences seem pedestrian with nothing really outstanding to rouse cinema adrenaline junkies, which is pretty surprising as Michael Bay is one of the producers.
On another level, the heavy — handed social commentary just seems lost in this dystopian fantasy and unconvincingly tacked on in an effort to make the movie more intelligent than it really is.
Overall, The Purge: Anarchy is a decent watch and a step above the first film but that’s not really saying much.
THE PURGE: ANARCHY
Directed by James DeMonaco
Starring Frank Grillo, Zach Gilford, Michael K. Williams, Carmen Ejogo, Kiele Sanchez, Zoe Soul
Duration: 103 minutes
Rating: 18