The First Purge (2018) review

In 2013, screenwriter James DeMonaco helmed his second directorial effort, The Purge, which was co-produced by Jason Blum and Michael Bay through their respective production companies. In this satirical action thriller, set in a dystopian future, the U.S. government initiates an annual ‘holiday’ known as the Purge, where all forms of crime are made legal, including murder, for 12 hours. Upon its release, the film received mixed to negative reviews from both critics and audiences who felt that it didn’t quite live up to the potential of its premise by mostly being a bottle film set within one family’s house. However, the film did do quite well at the box-office, grossing over $89 million on a minuscule $3 million budget. Thus, the series continued with 2014’s The Purge: Anarchy and 2016’s The Purge: Election Year. While neither sequel fared that much better with critics and audiences, they were at least praised for exploring the series’ premise further by spending more time out on the streets during Purge night. The sequels also benefitted from the casting of Frank Grillo as Sgt. Leo Barnes, a man who embarks on a quest for vengeance against the man who killed his son while also helping some innocent folks who end up forced out onto the streets. But now the series takes on a different direction with The First Purge which, as the title clearly states, focuses on the origins of this night of chaos. This time around, though, James DeMonaco isn’t behind the camera as the director due to his commitment to an upcoming drama film, Once Upon a Time in Staten Island. Instead, we have newcomer Gerard McMurray, who most notably served as an associate producer on Ryan Coogler’s 2013 directorial debut Fruitvale Station. But as for The First Purge, ultimately there’s not that much to say about this lackluster precursor to the previous three Purge films as it ends up being more like the mediocre first film instead of the decently entertaining sequels.

In the early 2010’s, America finds itself ravaged by overpopulation and economic turmoil. Amidst all this chaos, a new political group known as the New Founding Fathers of America is formed, successfully managing to assert themselves as the country’s new leaders through fearmongering propaganda and claims that they will save the country from its current state. Thus, to deal with the country’s current predicament, NFFA Chief of Staff Aldo Sabian (Patch Darragh) and scientist Dr. May Updale (Marisa Tomei) propose a ‘social experiment’ where all crimes are legal for 12 hours, including the biggest one of all, murder. The NFFA quickly put the plan into motion and the first official Purge is initiated with the New York borough of Staten Island being used as its initial testing area. Staten Island residents are offered a $5000 reward by the NFFA for staying in during the event with the promise of additional payment if they decide to go out and participate. However, when it becomes clear to the NFFA that not many murders are taking place on Purge Night, they decide to take matters into their own hands by sending in mercenaries disguised as gangs into the area to enact their sinister plans of dealing with the country’s overpopulation crisis. While this is going on, local drug lord Dmitri (Y’lan Noel) rallies his followers to fight back against these mercenaries while also working to protect his ex-girlfriend Nya (Lex Scott Davis), one of the experiment’s most vocal critics, and her brother Isaiah (Joivan Wade), who decides to participate in it after being egged on by a local street thug.

As alluded to in the intro, the Purge films have mainly been known for two things; their unabashedly unhinged action sequences and their politically-charged satire. The most recent films of the series have especially emphasized the latter, with some heavily pointed jabs at this country’s current administration and the overall oppression of minorities. However, at the same time, many have felt that the series never quite reaches the satirical lengths that it wants to even though the films are quite over-the-top in how they go about it, and that’s quite apparent with this film due to its extremely by-the-numbers plot. Simply put, this film’s status as a prequel to the previous films in the franchise is quite arguably the biggest tell-tale sign of how disastrous its proceedings are going to be. And that is because no matter what happens to the characters in this film, the previous films make it very clear that the NFFA will not be defeated, the Purge will continue, and it will expand nationwide. Granted, things get a little better once Purge Night truly gets started, as this is where the series has always thrived due to these films never straying away from showcasing all the pure insanity that stems from an event like this. But even this gets considerably hindered by some of the most poorly shot and edited action sequences in recent memory (and no, having some scenes set in a dark, devastated apartment building where the bright lights of fire alarms are going off doesn’t help). It also doesn’t help that this film ends up pulling quite a few anachronistic decisions here and there by adding in story concepts that weren’t even remotely featured in the previous films that, as a reminder, are set after it, like neon-colored optics that are given to participants by the NFFA for monitoring purposes.

Given that this film serves as the origins of Purge Night, this obviously means that no major players from the previous films appear in this installment, especially Frank Grillo’s Leo Barnes. In fact, this film is primarily centered on a cast of unknowns. The most prominent member of the cast is Marisa Tomei, and even she’s restricted to a minor and rather thankless supporting role (I would explain why, but that’d get into spoiler territory…). At the very least, the main leads all do decent jobs in their respective roles with the material that they’re given, most notably Y’lan Noel as Dmitri. While it’s obviously not the focus of the plot, there are some fascinating bits of development for his character, who is immediately established as being arguably just as harmful to the neighborhood as anything that happens on Purge night while still doing all that he can to protect it on such a night.  If anything, this film at least shows that there’s potential for Noel as a rising star in the action genre. And while they don’t get as much to work with, by comparison, Lex Scott Davis and Joivan Wade are both solid as well. Davis’ Nya serves as one of the rare sources of humanity in this crazy world while also managing to hold her own against her ex-boyfriend, while Wade’s Isaiah is someone who ends up being heavily influenced by the madness that is Purge Night until he realizes the depths that some folks go to during this time. Ultimately, though, as I noted earlier, there really isn’t that much for any of these actors and actresses to work with, resulting in quite a few extraneous characters who either don’t factor into the plot at all (e.g. a mother-daughter duo who mirror two of the main characters from The Purge: Anarchy and yet are just ‘there’) or are just used for comic relief.

If you recall the retrospective that I did on the first three Purge films back in October 2016, you’ll remember that I basically agreed with most critics and audiences in that while the first Purge was an underwhelming home invasion thriller, the sequels were far superior due to them legitimately exploring the craziness of Purge Night. Plus, Frank Grillo’s Leo Barnes was quite frankly the best thing about them. But as for The First Purge, it’s ultimately more in line with the first film due to it being a mediocre prequel. As a prequel, it doesn’t add anything major to the series and even if it does add something, it ends up severely contradicting future events because the things that they add weren’t seen in the other films. Plus, just like the first Purge film (and even some parts of the sequels), this film’s attempts at political satire ultimately fall by the wayside due to a predictable plot and mediocre characters despite the best efforts of a cast that is predominately made up of newcomers. With all this said, though, I’m aware that the idea of a Purge film that explored the origins of its titular event was quite possibly the most requested idea for a new film in the series by fans of the franchise. As such, for those fans, this film will probably satisfy them enough; still, I wouldn’t necessarily say that this is ‘enough’ because it quite frankly worked a lot better in the other films. In other words, this film might have worked a lot better had James DeMonaco stayed on as director. If anything, it would’ve probably resulted in better action sequences instead of the mediocre ones that we got instead. Ultimately, though, ‘mediocre’ is the key word to describe what may just be the weakest installment of the series.

Rating: 1.5/5