A Pair Of B+ Summer Action Movies

“Purge Anarchy” & “Snowpiercer”  - A Night For B+ Solid Action

“Purge Anarchy” is a movie that takes place during the one night of the year in which America all kinds of crimes are legal, including murder. “Snowpiercer” is a film that is set in the near future where the last surviving humans live on a never-ending train to stay alive and keep warm while outside the earth is in a new ice age. In the “Purge” we follow some unlucky citizens who are caught outside and fight to out-live the night while in “Snowpiercer” we watch as the citizens regulated in the poor tail section the train fight to get the upper hand against the lucky people who live in the fancy front section. It seems then that these two films have nothing in common; however I would say there is one small fact that links them both, corruption by the rich. In both movies are protagonists are poor people who due to the machinations of the rich are kept in place by laws and rules they do not control. During both movies we root for our heroes to finally get the upper hand and change the status quo.  “Snowpiercer” is more of a thoughtful look at this issue while “Purge” is more of an absurd take. At the end of the day for different reasons I found both of these films to be solid B+ action movies full of entertainment. That is why I decided to review them within the same post.

Purge Anarchy

Let me begin by stating this movie takes the kernel of a promising idea from the first movie and expands that into some amazing entertainment.  The plot of this film centers around a lone man who is known only as Sergeant (an excellent Frank Grillo) who wants to use this lawless night as a way to get revenge on a man who killed his son while he was driving while drunk. Along the way to seek his revenge Sergeant cannot stop himself from helping four helpless souls (a mother and her daughter and a bickering married couple) from getting killed as they all found themselves without shelter during the purge.  There is not much more to this plot and really for a movie like this there shouldn’t be. People such as me went into this movie just to see chaos rain throughout the purge and that’s what this film delivered where the first film failed.

Throughout the movie we see snipers taking out un-suspecting people on the streets, rich families paying poor people to sacrifice themselves for the purge, while other high society minded folk’s auction off people to kill in a “Running Man” type arena. Sure we see our protagonist’s band together and get through this ordeal and dialogue was also spoken but I just didn’t care. The only noteworthy performance was that of Frank Grillo as his Sergeant was the perfect badass hero we all love. Frank Grillo played his Sergeant with such gravitas he earned himself a new fan and I hope to see him in more future action roles.  

What I loved was the mindless violence of this movie and the sheer lunacy that in some alternate universe a night like this could even happen. The whole idea behind the purge is ludicrous as is the fact that for some reason the American people elected “New Founding Fathers” to the United States.  I mean, what the hell is a “New Founding Father?”  I also enjoyed all the background aspects of this movie that’s sheer purpose was to open doors  for future films in the franchise. We discovered in this movie that the American government is using this night to go out and murder poor people to help keep that population dwindling and at bay. By murdering innocent poor people, the government gets to state poverty is down since the annual Purge has begun. That type of idea just goes to show the absurdness of this movie. This film went for broke and we all benefitted.  

*On a side note the young married couple both deserved to die because if you are not locked in a house hours before the purge begins you are asking for death. The silliest aspect of the movie is that in the 6^th year of the purge people are still walking around outside hours before murder becomes legal. I am sorry but if this was a real occurrence I would be camping out in my house all day with the supplies I bought a whole night before.

Snowpiercer

Here is a movie that is truly coherent and full of thought provoking messages. This is extraordinary since the plot is truly absurd.  In this movie we learn that a new man made ice age has been going on for 18 years and the last few survivors all live on a train that never stops and travels the earth every year. At the front of the train are the former rich class and the further back you go on the train, the poorer its occupants are.  Our hero’s all live in the tail end of the train and their daily lives are a living hell.  These tail end citizens pretty much live in what seems like a Jewish Death Camp. Every day they are given rations of what is called a “protein bar”, they have no windows, they all sleep on stacked beds, they are murdered when the train’s population gets too big, and their children are taken forcefully from them for reasons unknown.  

The leader of this poor group is Gilliam (John Hurt) who is slowly ceding control to his second hand man Curtis (Chris Evans).  Over the course of the movie we see Curtis rally his people as they try and move through the train and eventually take over the control room at the frontoperated by the mysterious inventor Wilford.  The brilliance and beauty of this movie is seeing all the fun and different types of train cars that exist and that are used to keep the train operational. Of course the overall message of this movie is told to us by Mason (Tilda Swinton) a government employee. While she is held prisoner by Curtis she explains that while life may not seem fair to the people in the tail end, it is what is needed to keep society going; basically society needs balance to function.   Of course Curtis declares “that is easy to say when you were dealt a good life at the front”.

This movie just has so much going for it. From the amazing performances, to watching all the interesting ways the action was shot when confined to small train cars. To me the movie is worth it just for the scene that takes place in one of the classrooms. Here we see just how kids who were born in the front are taught about their society and the great Wilford and why those in the back are to be looked down upon. This scene is just wall-to-wall crazy.  

The reason I gave this movie a B+ is because even with its thoughtful message on how societies are built to be unfair, the movie does not go further.  I went in not really caring to learn more about the world this train takes place in. I just accepted that the last few humans live together in this society and that it is corrupt. However, the film could have been an A with a little more world building and answering questions. It would have been cool to see how people got on the train in the first place, or was there a chance Wilford could have helped cause this ice disaster.  Who chose the people who got to be on the train, were all world leaders barred from this miracle?  Also, I know the people at the front of the train are rich and well taken care over, but surely they all cannot just be mindless assholes; someone most kind of care that they treat others as slaves.

In the end this was a fun ride and Chris Evans once again nails another performance.