The fictional President of the Unitied State and leader of the New Founding Fathers of America (Ian Blackman) must be a distant relation of Ebeneezer Scrooge for his covert policy to reduce the welfare bill by employing murderous mercenaries to “depopulate the lower classes”, a charge levelled at him by The Architect (Marisa Tomei) of a scientific experiment to gauge how people react when given the option of enacting violence without worry of consequence, bears a striking resemblance to the Dickensian miser’s withering dismissal of two portly fundraisers for the poor: “If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

The prequel to the Purge trilogy (The Purge, The Purge: Anarchy, The Purge: Election Year) directed by Fruitvale Station associate producer Gerard McMurray and penned by the writer and director of the previous instalments James DeMonaco is political with a capital “P”.

The year is 2014. Trump is a reality television star telling would-be hotshots “You’re fired”, three years before he fooled all of the people all of the time when his soundbites to “build the wall” and “drain the swamp” and “lock her up” resulted in American voters telling him “You’re hired”.

Another sub-prime financial bubble is about to burst. The gap between rich and poor is wider than ever before. And unemployment, along with gun crime, drug use and population levels is at an all-time high. Not to mention anger which is on the verge of erupting like a volcano.

“Who are you angry at?” asks a clinical psychologist to a wide-eyed madman by the name of Skeletor (Rotimi Paul). “Everyone,” his snarled reply. A feeling shared by many in the low income housing projects of Staten Island in which those who chose to remain and accept the $5k “monetary compensation” to “participate” in the study are forced to ascend above and “pray not purge” or descend to the depths of depravity and join in the inaugural “night of legalised crime”.

For a fourth film in a franchise, The First Purge is surprisingly good. The politics is woven into the thread of the plot, rather than shoe-horned. The drama is reduced to a small core of protagonists, each distinct, each with a credible motive behind their actions and a cretinous enemy to overcome. The set-up is snappy. And unlike the streets of Staten Island there are no dead patches in the short running time of 97 minutes.

That said, there is a televisual feel to the cinematography and the many crowd scenes of demonstrations, press conferences, street parties and riots look underpopulated and staged. Similarly, other than a brief but memorable splicing of two dancing with death scenes, there are no spectacular or gory set-pieces. And though humour comes in the voluptuous shape of the foul-mouthed Dolores (Mugga), the tone is relatively dry.

But given the parallels to the politics of today which has fuelled rising levels of public disenchantment with all things establishment – the result of which is crystallised in one of the questions leveled at Skeletor: “Do you know how to handle this anger if you don’t get high?” – The First Purge is very watchable, if not gripping.

And, shock horror, it ends with a glimmer of hope in the closing line and lyrics by the 12-time Grammy Award-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar that perhaps one day we will all walk out of the shower like Bobby Ewing out of Dallas and realise that Trump and Brexit (and James Corden) was just a dream!

Director: Gerard McMurray
Writer: James DeMonaco
Stars: Y’lan Noel, Lex Scott Davis, Joivan Wade
Peter Callaghan
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