Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Y’Lan Noel, Lex Scott Davis, Joivan Wade, Mugga, Patrick Darragh, Marisa Tomei, Luna Lauren Velez, Kristen Solis, Rotimi Paul, Mo McRae, Jermel Howard, Siva, Christian Robinson, Steve Harris, Derek Basco, D.K. Bowser, Mitchell Edwards, Maria Rivera, Chyna Layne, Ian Blackman, Melonie Diaz, Naszir Nance.

If you hold a mirror up to society you can see the image, the sheer ugliness of the truth reflected back; if 2018 will be remembered in cinematic terms for two things, then the age of the superhero truly caught the public’s imagination in the excellent Black Panther, and the absolute truth played out in The First Purge.

The first of these two films gave the audience extreme hope, perhaps misplaced, but still one that nurtures the soul and makes you believe that someday such richness of life would be possible, the latter, the more extreme but more in keeping with the fear that the vast majority of people have about the way the world is turning, not least of all in the United States of America.

That mirror held up is not the first to reflect a deep-seated disgust at the situation that is forever in the country’s mind, to make a huge political point about the rank hypocrisy of the wealthy white elite and the black poor, you can go as far back to the film Night of the Living Dead in which the statement was unleashed as Duane Jones’ hero- Ben- was shot at the end of George A. Romero’s classic, but in the darkness of The First Purge, it is in the exact detail, the sheer naked and unsettling behaviour of this elite that makes the film incredibly poignant and deeply disturbing.

All purges arguably start as an experiment, the questions asked with double faced sincerity, how do you feel about your neighbour, are you angry, are you jealous, insecure, do they frighten you, are you concerned for your future – it all starts with seemingly simple questions, then the scapegoats come. It is the fault of the poor, the disabled, the foreigners, the Jews, the Black population, the Hispanics -but it is never the elite’s fault, never them who oversee such desperation. The brilliance of James DeMonaco’s writing in The First Purge, the fourth in the series, is that it calls out this rank and disgusting hypocrisy for what it is, a disease that never goes away, a virus that we keep stamping out, but then like a cockroach infestation, keeps returning.

We are one small step it seems from seeing such behaviour become the accepted norm, the brutality and lies inflicted on once small community as an experiment, just a breath in the wrong direction away.

With exceptional performances by Y’Lan Noel as Dmitri, Rotimi Paul’s alarming portrayal of alienated drug use and desire to murder in his character Skeletor and Marisa Tomei as the creator of the idea of the Purge, this film is a violent, unrelenting mirror, a reflection of the society we are rushing headlong into and the ominous, frightening prospect that it entails. The First Purge should come with a warning, not for its depiction of violence, but one that proclaims loudly, this is what you get when you elect without thinking.

Ian D. Hall