Few franchises have a concept as evocative as The Purge.
The allegory-heavy property puts forth the premise of an annual 12-hour period in which
all crime in the US is legal, an idea introduced with the series' first movie in 2013.
The fourth movie, The First Purge, takes audiences back to the first experimental instance of
what would later become a violent tradition.
Set in the New York City borough of Staten Island, the horror-thriller hybrid provides
the clearest look yet at the beginnings of the Purge as a national institution.
If you're not sure that you picked up on everything the movie was putting down, stay with us as
we break down the ending and thematic takeaways of The First Purge.
Defend the neighborhood
Act three of The First Purge turns into a full-on action movie as drug kingpin Dmitri
storms the towers of the Park Hill housing projects to protect his friends on the fourteenth
floor.
By this point, the movie has officially turned from a citizen-on-citizen free-for-all into
a government-sanctioned extermination campaign, as the international militia hired by the
NFFA begins clearing the building floor-by-floor.
It's dramatic irony that the only defender of the vulnerable people in the housing project
is the friendly neighborhood narcotics salesman, who apparently happens to spend every moment
away from his business lifting weights, eating protein, and getting insanely good at using
firearms.
Far from the typical media portrayal of a drug dealer, Dmitri is a homegrown Batman
figure, his neighborhood's wealthy, well-equipped, most capable defender.
Unlike the hyper right-wing government and ruling class that is literally trying to kill
the neighborhood, this businessman-turned-warrior is an authority figure who values his community
and keeping people safe.
He's not your typical protagonist, and it's one of the things that makes this particular
Purge installment so intriguing.
Intentional extermination
After two acts' worth of tension in the streets, the government takes the gloves off for the
movie's brutal finale.
At this point, the undercurrent of class warfare and exploitation that's informed the whole
series is revealed in all of its ugliness, as the Purge is identified as a tool for exterminating
the lower class.
The event isn't a solution to society's problems, but a scapegoating of society's weakest, with
free passes going to the forces in control that are actually to blame.
In a country where the economic divide between the upper and lower classes has never been
more dramatic, this is a message that resonates.
In our very real world, the poor are often blamed for their own circumstances, instead
of the predatory forces that exploit them and keep them down.
In the just-slightly-heightened world of The Purge, they're not just blamed for their own
poverty; they're intentionally exterminated.
The NFFA isn't just relying on its private
militia to exterminate the poor.
In order to make sure that the experimental first Purge actually pops off, the government
injects a massive influx of heavy weaponry into the Staten Island black market.
Most of these weapons are handily requisitioned by Dmitri's staff, who use the arsenal for
their own counteroffensive against the government-sponsored invaders.
This plot turn speaks to a number of tactics that have been used, allegedly or not, by
the US government.
As The First Purge establishes, the NFFA believes that death needs to happen on a massive scale
during the experiment in order to create the political capital for a national Purge.
To achieve that end, they're willing to covertly arm the population with heavy artillery.
It's a fact that the US government sends weapons all over the place to aid with causes, nations,
and groups that it supports around the world, directly fueling conflicts for its own benefit.
In The First Purge, the government sends out arms to exterminate its own people - another
instance of the movie taking something real, and adding a sinister twist.
The First Purge clearly wraps the government
and its allies in recognizable symbols of white supremacy, taking the racist undercurrent
that's always been associated with the Purge and making it explicit.
It's not just a class war the NFFA is gunning for - it's a race war with a Nazi-esque mission.
It's no accident that the fourth Purge movie features a cast, according to producer James
DeMonaco, that's 90% black, because the theme of white violence against black communities
is at the heart of what the movie's trying to convey.
The movie plays with potent iconography.
To help spread violence on Staten Island, the government lets in goons with red, white,
and blue KKK hoods, evoking decades of history of racist violence.
Blue-eyed, blond-haired, government-sanctioned militia men wear blackface masks, or dress
like SS officers as they attack the Staten Island community.
Acts of violence in the movie uncomfortably evoke real life hate crimes, with attackers
bearing torches and wearing crosses that clearly evoke recognizable hate symbols.
It's heavy stuff that the movie doesn't always deploy gracefully, making for bracing moments
that get way too real.
Be alright
The movie ends in fire as the showdown in the Park Hill projects comes to a violent,
C-4-fueled conclusion.
The end of the fight just happens to coincide with the end of the 12-hour experiment period.
Just like that, the island is returned to a state of relative calm.
After the shootout, Dmitri, Nya, Isaiah and Dolores join the crowd outside in the light
of dawn, reconnecting with the community after the night of violence.
Instead of tearing each other apart as the NFFA intended, the citizens defended each
other - a moral victory, if nothing else.
As the movie ends, the Purge is over - now, to paraphrase the movie's final words, it's
time to fight.
The movie's hopeful ending stands in contrast to what we know about where the story is going.
The residents of Staten Island don't succeed in stopping the Purge from spreading nationwide,
and the tradition doesn't end for years, or potentially decades.
Despite this, the movie concludes to the hopeful strains of Kendrick Lamar's "Alright", a modern-day
anthem of resolve and resilience that's used now to represent resistance.
No matter how many Purges happen in the future, people will always try to help each other
and survive.
People will always fight back.
In a series this bleak, that's a victory in itself.
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