Quartile rating: 5.5/10 · 1 rating
To push the crime rate below one percent for the rest of the year, the New Founding Fathers of America test a sociological theory that vents aggression for one night in one isolated community. But when the violence of oppressors meets the rage of the others, the contagion will explode from the trial-city borders and spread across the nation.
The First Purge is a serviceable but underwhelming prequel that attempts to add racial and political commentary to the franchise but executes it with heavy-handedness and shallow characterization. The plot retreads familiar Purge territory while trying to explain the concept's origins, but the storytelling lacks depth and the social critique feels blunt rather than incisive. Acting is functional but unremarkable across the board, with characters feeling more like archetypes than fully realized people. Cinematography is workmanlike, leaning on dark urban settings without any particularly memorable visual choices. Novelty is low — as a fourth entry in the franchise, it repackages the same core premise with a thin origin story wrapper, offering little that distinguishes it meaningfully from its predecessors despite the racial politics angle. The ending resolves predictably and without much dramatic payoff, capping a film that never quite lives up to its thematic ambitions.