THE PURGE: ANARCHY

United States. For several years, crime has drastically reduced thanks to the 28th Amendment sanctioned by the New Founding Fathers of America, which allows anyone, for one night a year, to commit any crime – even murder – without it being considered a crime. They call it the Annual Purge and, unless you want to unleash the most bloodthirsty instincts, it is highly recommended to lock yourself well inside your home. Unfortunately for Shane and Liz, who are crossing the city just before sunset, a malfunction hits their car and the two lovers find themselves in the middle of a war zone, chased by a gang of masked troublemakers. At the same time, Eva and her daughter Cali are attacked in their apartment by a squad of mysterious individuals in riot gear, but they are saved by an armed man, who, however, has a precise plan for that night. The incredible success achieved last year by "The Purge" pushed producer Jason Blum to immediately put a sequel into production. Here, with just 3 million dollars and a total gross of about 90 million, the budget has slightly increased to 9 million, although on the launch day alone the film, again directed by James DeMonaco, has already grossed 13 million. The dystopian future in which this film is set is sufficiently terrifying and expandable to guarantee a solid narrative and suggestive basis for creating a real franchise… and that is what is happening, so much so that this second chapter manages to be what the first one was not due to the too limited budget. It does not take much to conclude that James DeMonaco has managed to craft a work even better than the already good first chapter and it is evident that in the mind of the director and screenwriter "The Purge" was this and not just a simple home invasion movie. The siege situation, in minimal terms, is also here, but "Anarchy" has a broad scope, many different situations and various locations, showing us what happens in the streets during the Night of the Purge, rather than telling us about it in words, as happened in the prototype. Initially "Anarchy" has three different viewpoints on the situation, Liz and Shane, Eva and Cali, and the avenger played by Frank Grillo, who also offers the unprecedented look of the executioner. The three different situations, within about twenty minutes, tend to converge into a single story transforming "The Purge 2" into a compact film even if collective, a bit like what happened in last year's adventure. But if in the film with Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey the road of the thriller with horror shades was taken, both for the use of tension and for the violence and iconography of situations and characters, in "Anarchy" that mood of a scary movie is abandoned in search of that of action. But we are far from the current action cinema made of special effects and hyperbolic choreographies, rather it is evident how James DeMonaco wants to pay homage to certain violent and very dark 1980s cinema, first of all "The Warriors" by Walter Hill. Of course, moments of great tension and horror are not lacking, linked above all to the exhibition of rather crude violence – but never tending towards splatter – which at a certain point tends to bring "Anarchy" closer to some suggestions of "Hostel". What is missing in DeMonaco's new film perhaps is a meticulous deepening of some characters, first of all the couple of lovers, classic young people thrown into the cauldron but lacking a real quid in the story, unlike, however, the avenger, excellently played by a Frank Grillo who seems to be rehearsing for a hypothetical "The Punisher" and who we will soon see in the role of the protagonist in the American remake of "The Raid". Very substantial is the political component, already evident in the first film and here amplified by a perverse speech on money as the true God that moves every action and the insertion of a group of anti-Purge revolutionaries who, according to producer Jason Blum, could have a more substantial role in a next chapter. And it is not surprising even a certain reference to John Carpenter's "anarchic" cinema, in particular that of the 1980s, when the anti-capitalist message raged in his works, also because DeMonaco boasts in his curriculum the script of the remarkable remake of "Assault on Precinct 13". In short, "Anarchy – The Purge" convinces, has that epic b-movie flavor that has not been felt for a long time, has genuinely genuine situations to recall certain glorious genre cinema that was, while conducting a personal and coherent discourse that never abandons easy nostalgic quotationism. And now let's get ready for the carnage of the Third Annual Purge!