Two things happened when The Purge: Anarchy opened in 2014.
First, a consensus formed among critics and moviegoers that the film improved on its predecessor, The Purge, by taking its bleak pseudo-dystopian home-invasion template — all crime is legal for one night! — and turning it into an unhinged snapshot of the country’s psyche.
Second, Frank Grillo, the film’s star, likewise went through an abrupt but long-gestating career shift. At the time, Grillo was right on the cusp of a breakthrough moment thanks to noteworthy roles in three movies released between 2011 and 2012: Gavin O’Connor’s Warrior, Joe Carnahan’s The Grey, and David Ayer’s End of Watch. It just so happens the breakthrough came a few years later, under the direction of James DeMonaco, who became genre cinema’s reluctant Nostradamus upon creating the Purge franchise.
DeMonaco’s foresight apparently only applies to attempted insurrections. He couldn’t predict the effect The Purge: Anarchy would have on Grillo’s choice of future projects, or that, to this day, it’s the film he’s best recognized for. It isn’t “Winter Soldier” that passersby call out to him when he’s out in public. It’s “Purge, Purge, Purge!”
“When I did The Purge: Anarchy, all of a sudden I was an action guy,” Grillo tells Inverse. “The Purge: Anarchy started me on this career path of being an action guy, and I leaned into it. That was a real pivotal time, and a real pivotal movie for me as far as even having a career.”
It’s jolting to think of the second entry in a nascent horror series as “pivotal” for an actor coming off of three films that look better on paper (and on Rotten Tomatoes). But The Purge: Anarchy’s widened scope vitalizes the franchise’s basic conceit. Where the original film treats the Purge itself as window dressing, Anarchy puts viewers in the fray on Purge night. Apart from providing the catalyst for explosive tension, the change in scenery lets DeMonaco flex his imagination, showcasing a smorgasbord of over-the-top mayhem committed by everyday Americans indulging their baser instincts.
Grillo plays Leo Barnes, an LAPD sergeant with his own Purge mission: avenging his son’s death a year prior in a drunk driving incident. Barnes, credited simply as “Sergeant,” hits a speed bump when he happens upon Eva (Carmen Ejogo) and her daughter Cali (Zoë Soul) as they’re abducted by paramilitary stormtroopers. Against his better judgment, Barnes intervenes, saves them, and offers to escort them to safety. They’re joined by Shane and Liz, an estranged couple played by real-life couple Zach Gilford and Kiele Sanchez. Making their way across LA, the group witnesses government-sanctioned atrocities down every alley and around every corner, doing their best to avoid Purgers as well as agents of the New Founding Fathers of America — the sadistic totalitarian regime responsible for implementing the Purge in the first place.
“This is a very dark movie,” Grill observes. “It's metaphorically dark, and it's a dark film.”
An action movie shot at night calls for the right outfit. Barnes had to blend into his surroundings, but he had to look cool as hell, too.
“We started with the jacket,” Grillo says. “I need something that’s like ¾ length. Think Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Josey Wales. We always went back to Kurt Russell in Escape from New York, too.”
Grillo cites that film specifically, and Russell at large, as essential components of Barnes’ character. After all, as he puts it, “Who’s cooler than Kurt Russell?” Barnes’ connection to old school movie heroes brought DeMonaco and Grillo to his choice in vehicle — a black Dodge Charger, modified with heavy armor for the night’s festivities — and led them to shave down his dialogue.
‘“Let’s cut a lot of the lines,’” Grillo recalls suggesting to DeMonaco during production. “Again, in the world of Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood, less is more, right?”
This is key to The Purge: Anarchy’s climax. When Barnes arrives at his destination, the home of the man responsible for murdering his son, “less” is exactly what makes the moment work.
“When [Barnes] goes in to kill the guy who killed his son, he purges emotionally,” Grillo says. “He can't do it. He can't. He's not that guy.”
His and DeMonaco’s approach to the character sustains the question of whether or not he is, though, until the film’s final minutes. We know Barnes is compassionate enough to save strangers from harm. We don’t know if he’s compassionate enough to save his target from himself.
That tension is absent in The Purge: Election Year. That film takes place 17 years after The Purge: Anarchy and brings Grillo back as Barnes, turning him into the pseudo-protagonist of the franchise. Barnes is no longer a cop. Instead, he’s head of security for Senator Charlene Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell), a presidential candidate running on a platform of shutting down the Purge. Her message goes over like a lead balloon with the NFFA, who stack the deck against her on Purge night in hopes of assassinating her sans consequence.
For all the differences between Election Year and Anarchy, though, Grillo’s enthusiasm for Barnes remains tangible. He cares about this character, about the entire Purge franchise, and especially about DeMonaco, one of the three people (along with O’Connor and Carnahan) who in Grillo’s words, “gave me the opportunity to do what I do.” Grillo enjoys what he does. He’s embracing his identity as an action star, and his masculinity.
“I’m not afraid to be the guy to take care of business,” he says.
He’s talking about his characters foremost, but he’s talking a little bit about himself, too: What he calls his “core values” as a person are what he invests in all of his characters, whether it’s stoicism or wiseass tongue-in-cheek humor. It’s how he avoids simply copy-pasting Barnes into each of his movies and finds ways to make every new role he takes on unique from the rest.
Considering the amount of thought he put into playing Barnes in The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Election Year, it doesn’t come as a surprise when Grillo expresses his interest in playing the haunted ex-officer again — or that he’d hang up his boots for the chance.
“I would end my career doing one more Purge with [DeMonaco],” Grillo says.
There’s a script in place, there’s fan interest in a sixth Purge, and there’s every dollar-and-cents reason to make one happen. Grillo is perplexed that “[Universal] haven’t jumped on it yet,” but production limbo or no, he’s not betting against DeMonaco or the Purge. His career is about taking opportunities as they come. This fall to winter season alone, he’s appearing in the zombie survivalist film Die Alone with Carrie-Anne Moss, Long Gone Heroes with Josh Hutcherson, Andy Garcia, and Melissa Leo, and the high concept lycanthropy film Werewolves with Katrina Law and Ilfenesh Hadera; next year, he’s set to appear in James Gunn’s Superman reboot and the second season of Gunn’s Peacemaker. Sometimes, though, his career about making opportunities happen.
“We bet on ourselves,” Grillo declares. “I’ll bet on myself and James and the fans.”
