During America’s annual night of sanctioned anything-goes mayhem, a badass security chief (Frank Grillo) must make sure that an idealistic Presidential candidate (Elizabeth Mitchell) survives until dawn. Also, a pack of murderous schoolgirls with blinged-out power tools roams the streets. This, it must be said, is all pretty silly, particularly when writer/director James DeMonaco slows things down to a crawl in order to expand the scope of the premise, or emphasize an already obvious point. (Even for a series as unsubtle as this, having the cackling Political Fatcats in charge literally froth at the mouth may be slightly gilding the lily.) When in motion, however, the same B-movie current that drove the superior The Purge: Anarchy still packs an undeniable scuzzy charge. As in that previous installment, Grillo is the main reason to watch, slamming his way through any and all obstacles in his path with a no-nonsense presence that recalls Bronson and Eastwood in their primes. Whenever the movie stops trying to be clever and just lets him get to work, the complaints tend to fade. By Andrew Wright