The ballot is stronger than the bullet. - Abraham Lincoln
While I whole-heartedly agree with the 16th President of the United States, ultimately, it wasn't a lost election that took his life. Hell, it wasn't even a vampire [review], or an unrelentingly demanding wife [review] (both equally deadly). It was a single bullet cast by, of all things, an actor.
Yeah, we gotta vote. No matter what. But let's not entirely discount the power of a psycho with a gun.
Turns out, those f--kers have some pull, too.
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| And I thought the Washington National's version was scary.... |
For something as easily dismissive as an 'action/horror movie', The Purge: Election Year is an impeccably-timed piece of subversive cinema. Writer/director James DeMonaco's third Purge film ups the ante of the previous two, pitting the fate of our yearly cleanse in the hands of drastically divided voters. Twelve hours of murder and chaos seems like something that we would never actually see on a ballot, but, at this point, would anything really surprise you?
Anyway, in DeMonaco's fictional version of the United States (decades into the future), two rival political figures are battling it out in a Presidential debate days before the annual Purge. Senator Roan (a solid Elizabeth Mitchell) represents a new way of thinking, and opposes the annual bloodbath . See, in the twelve hours where anything goes, a disproportionate number of poor people and minorities are ruthlessly slaughtered, and Roan has a plan to end it. Minister Owens, on the other hand, speaks for the old guard, and sees nothing wrong with our God-given right...to murder one another. While the debate is certainly heated, it's just words being fired at one another. Remember, as lawless as the Purge is, there are some basic ground rules. Killing government officials is illegal.
Well, it was.
