The Purge: Anarchy Review

The Purge: Anarchy is a sequel to The Purge (2013) which follows different characters in a different setting. Instead of taking place in a cushy, upper class suburban home, we follow a group of civilians as they scramble through the streets of a dangerous city on the one night of the year where you don’t want to be out in the open.

A sequel with no connecting characters can be risky but sometimes refreshing; The Purge: Anarchy is the latter and the new characters are all real enough for you to believe and even route for. Frank Grillo gives a decent performance in the lead role but his brooding silence becomes a bit daft after a while.

The film starts off promising with some interesting – albeit obvious – foreshadowing. The characters are all set up and developed well and there are a few interesting plot ideas within the first hour. Unfortunately, once the purge begins the ideas stop flowing; the violence and riots are somewhat entertaining for a while but eventually you realise that this sequel has nothing more to offer. The Purge was a slightly underrated thriller from last year – it was certainly not the greatest film of the year, or even close. It did have a new and fresh idea for a plot however, and it did set up and interesting environment for a thriller to be set in. Anarchy is actually anything but anarchy, the story eventually settles into a thriller structure template and the film feels a lot blander than it should be.

Towards the end things take a turn for the worst; there are a couple of semi-interesting plot twists and character developments but they are ruined and overshadowed by some bizarre plot points. The climax of the film is so odd and clearly shows that the writer ran out of ideas and started lifting from other successful films. The people featured in the film (good and bad) end up being more like caricatures rather than real people – in other films this might work and create a queasy surreal vibe, but here it comes off as comical. It is unfortunate because The Purge: Anarchy had potential to be a decent sequel. However, some of the twists will leave you saying to yourself “did they really think this would work?”

Overall, The Purge: Anarchy is a disappointingly bland film; it starts off really well but by the last half hour of the film it has ran out of steam. There are decent performances by everyone and the action and chase sequences are pretty entertaining – the story that links them together is where this film fails.

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