10 Films That Stick It To The Man

You know there’s something in the air when Michael Bay produces a movie that sticks it to the ruling classes.

From the moment a terminally ill father receives $100,000 for selling himself to a rich family – in effect, offering himself up as a sacrifice to amuse the privileged classes – it’s clear that this sequel has more on its mind than making money (how many Platinum Dunes productions can you say that about?).

Coming on like a more restrained, more class-conscious version of Hostel, The Purge Anarchy portrays its working class characters as fundamentally good people battling for their lives against a superior breed that hunts them for sport. When it’s revealed that purging doesn’t quite thin the herd as expected, death squads are dispatched to kill a few more peasants, something you just don’t see very often in multiplex fare.

Anarchy was followed two years later by Election Year, whose tagline (“Keep America Great!”) caught the attention of President Trump: he wants to use it in his 2020 re-election campaign, perhaps not realizing that it was the slogan for a movie about a dystopian future.