Ratings: Free State of Jones = 3.5 of 5. The Purge: Election Year = 2.5 of 5
In the pilot episode of HBO’s "The Newsroom," Jeff Daniels’s news anchor character Will McAvoy lamented in a fit of frustration that America was more divided now than we were during the Civil War. Being someone who has grown up in both Louisiana and Georgia, I can safely say that, at the very least, people are united on one thing: Hate.
Modest reform aside, the Confederate flag still waves proudly on the porches of neighbors, bumper stickers proudly proclaim crude N.R.A. allegiance and Facebook comments are proudly typed with both staggering ignorance and malicious distrust. As Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine concluded, we are not a society that should be armed.
At the moment of this writing, two more incidents of extreme police brutality have occurred, one just about an hour away from my home. In my state, a bill affectionately called “Blue Lives Matter” was passed, which made attacks on officers of the law a hate crime. It is at once an understandable given and a slap in the face to victims of “justifiable” violence on civilians. None of this is surprising and everything is allowed. Well, everything that tears the many apart and favors the few, anyway.
This is the expose and message of both Free State of Jones and The Purge: Election Year. Absolutely.
Matthew McConaughey’s not-quite-vanity-project-but-completely-centered-on-him Civil War drama, Jones is an eat the rich affair. Runaway slaves, ex-Confederate soldiers, poor southerners and anybody against the war made up a swarm of fighters, housed in the swamps of Mississippi, who could take being beaten down by the ravages of war no more. When told by a friend that a dead soldier died with honor, McConaughey replies, “Nah. He just died.”
War as a tool of control is surprisingly brought up here in righteous terms. Never laid in thick, but always on our mind. Heck, even racism amongst the have nots is made clear as a tool – maybe weapon? Where Free State of Jones drags and gets redundant, it tightens its fists, throws them up high, and shouts at all not from a pedestal, but a street corner. History as a means of present reflection.
In the latest Purge flick, we get a similar, if less subtle message. The series started as a home invasion scenario, and quickly expanded onto the streets and now… back onto the streets. D.C. memorials get vandalized and people are mowed down in this version of America where all crime is A OK for 12 hours once a year. A mass extermination of those who can’t afford sanctuary, basically.
Under the facade of economic recovery for all, it’s really a scheme for the Trumps and Cheneys to make more. From the get go, this is clear. Our opening scene is an almost illuminati-like meeting of minds between members of the ruling political party, plotting assassination to maintain power. Blunt and blatant, spelled out in permanent markers, the statement of Election Year’s "What if?" does, indeed, make one ponder the circumstances of today's country. Are we primed to drown in the culture of fear created for us? Doomed to waste one another in most excessive ways, while the wealth remains undisbursed?
Neither Free State nor Purge handles its themes without some ham, which comes off as strong scented as nail polish remover. Jones has a depressing if occasionally inspiring outlook, while Purge is cautionary and optimistic. Yes, optimistic. Things can change, but not without struggle. Not without some pull. Constant and consistent pull. Everlasting pull.
To tighten its grip when threatened is the modus operandi of power. Both films understand this. When a candidate suggests ending the annual purge event, a KKK/neo-Nazi militant group, with shockingly ballsy contrasts to armed forces, is called upon to “assist.” When slavery is abolished, local laws are put in place to allow “apprenticeship” by force. It’s all so startling just how mainstream these thematic parallels have become. Art imitating life.
The Purge: Election Year is entertaining and spot on at its best, and over the top silly at its worst. No time for properly laid subtext? Understood. Obnoxiously loud acting and tired dialogue? Not so much. Then again, this is exactly how I picture America years after President Trump. A utopia of blood and bullets. A paradise built for some, on the backs of others.
Sounds familiar, actually. Free State of Jones is history as told and taught with mighty hindsight and foresight. Convenient, but true. Never misguided, but sometimes dull. Slows down towards the end, but doesn't lose its meaningful footing. McConaughey continues to impress. Alright.
Watch enough movies, and you’ll start to see yourself on the screen. Do you like what you see?
Bill Arceneaux is an independent film critic from New Orleans and a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association.
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