A Very Purging Christmas: A Purge Movie Outline

I love "The Purge" series.
I know that the first film is a bit of wasted potential, but it has some high points to it (Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, the dinner table scene), in particular it has the absolutely fantastic central concept of crime being legal for one night a year. Whereas the first was a simple home-invasion movie, the second, "The Purge: Anarchy" was where the series hit its stride, becoming what the first movie should have been: The Warriors, with no rules and thrice the chaos.

Though without, unfortunately, the magnificence of the Baseball Furies.

It had a sense of humour about it, it toyed with the concept, became something of a snarling, vicious look at America's underbelly. It took social commentary, horror, humanity's darkest depravity, and mixed in a few jokes, a sprinkling of chaos, the chase movie and, most importantly:

It had Frank Grillo.
Frank Grillo is as tough as a Brillo.
Add him to a movie for the extra Thrill-o.

Anyway, they're great movies. There's always a sense of fun with them and they have tiny budgets (comparatively speaking) when compared to other movies, so they are pretty much destined to forever make a profit, which is no bad thing in my book. Whilst creating franchises rather than good films is often the death knell for creativity, The Purge is one of the few series which has gotten better with each passing sequel.
But they could use something different. They could use a little extra spice in them.

Thus I would like to propose this:
A Purge Christmas movie, done as a heist.
I know, I know, the Purge is never set at Christmas time, (They are set on March 31st, if you wish to know) but still, you could release it AT Christmas, make a little bitterness for the annual festive cheer. Keep the setting, keep the director, keep the set up and keep the crazy, almost playful sense of delight and wonder in addition to the grim unmasking of human nastiness (intentional in a movie where so many wear masks) and, importantly, keep the social commentary.
It's less a social commentary and more of a vindictive drunken rant.

Here's the set up:
You set it at a supermarket/shopping mall, big on excess, branding, forced cheeriness, profits, targets, you know the kind.

It's the perfect one-stop shop for all of your needs. Our main character (though, like the best Purge movies, this will inevitably be an ensemble piece, so bear with me) would be Paul, a middle manager of the day shift here.
Paul is an average, likable guy (being white in the Purge Universe means you last longer, though thankfully this was intentional on the part of the film makers. They know that America would enact ethnic cleansing in this scenario) who has fallen on hard times. He used to have a high flying job in the city, but this is now one of the few jobs he can get. He lives with his wife, Sally, and cares for his sick mother, Beryl.

I imagine him being played by Jim True-Frost, both to fit the sort of actors these movies lure in (Ethan Hawke was something of an anomaly) and because he just looks so lovable and endearing. Who wouldn't want him to succeed? 

It's a job, and he gets by, but he finds it harder and harder each month, especially when it comes to paying rent and buying his mother's medication. He's a softly spoken guy, and he keeps to himself, he is just trying to do right.
He even owes money to a friend of his, a guy he knew from school, we shall call him Joey. Joey is a lot like Paul... in that he is white. That is where the similarities end. Joey always seems to have cash, but he's shady and a little bit of a cheeky chappie. I'm not talking about the lovable robot kin who hangs out with Die Antwoord.

I imagine him as James Ransone. Whipping his dick out is optional. Since Michael K Williams was in "Anarchy", why not make this a reunion of "The Wire"?

Joey needs the money back from Paul, as he is hoping to skip town. But he likes Paul, so he's not going to break his legs or anything like that. Instead he makes a proposition: They embark upon an enormous score on Purge Night, hitting up Paul's supermarket. Since Paul knows it well, he can not only get them in, but help them access the stock, evade the brand spanking new security system and get them out of there unharmed.
To sweeten the deal, he even gives Paul another offer: he can get Sally and Beryl on one of the buses out of town on Purge night, rumoured to take people to safe places. It's normally done by lottery for a charity/goodwill drive by the NFFA, but Joey has managed to snag some tickets.
Paul is sold, warily and tentatively, and meets the rest of those participating in the heist. There's Julie, a young lady who has just discovered she is pregnant and needs the money to get an abortion, career criminal (and Joey's brother) Charlie, who wants to make a big score and set up a business; and Kat, a woman who is actually known to Paul and got sacked a few weeks back in their huge period of lay-offs, now wanting revenge on these bastards.

Clifton Collins is so underrated... He also looks quite a bit like James Ransone. Any excuse to cast Clifton Collins Jr in something. Remember one of the generic henchmen in "Parker" or the technician in "Pacific Rim"? Both him.

And so our film begins.
Sally and Beryl get on the bus, whilst Paul promises to be back after "taking care of himself", not telling them about the heist. Yet the bus is all too convenient, Sally feels that there has to be something up here...
The gang pull up at the place and prepare. Paul is nervous, understandably, but sits in the car with Julie, the two of them bonding as the more "normal" members of the crew and doing the awkward white people shtick. They also witness some of the Purgers out for their shits and giggles good times, whilst Charlie, Kat and Joey begin to scout the place, ready to signal the pair when it's safe to go in.

To paraphrase: shit ain't right.
The store has been transformed into the perverted playground of The Manager and Security Guard, the former being a perverted parody of the American Dream, wondering why success and joy and respect have not come to him after all this time and effort and why people don't respect his power, and the latter being a power junkie on a trip, dressing as "The Sheriff" and erecting gallows, offering to release women if they perform sexual favours for him. Together the pair work with a Purge Gang, bringing people in and turning the place into an arena/hunting ground of total, utter carnage, their own personal perverted playground. It's also something of a haven for the Purge Gangs due to its security systems, protecting them from the growing Anti-Purge movement and vigilantes now roaming the streets and fighting back. In this place, with the lights down, there is only one option:

Now, the gang have clearly made an enormous mistake, but that is not the half of it. They can try to leave, but the place is in lock-down, and making matters worse: The Manager has already got a lot of innocent people in there. Joey may be leading a gang of shit-bags, but they can't just leave these people in there...

Capcom had the right idea.

Meanwhile, Sally was right about the bus. The thing is diverted and stops in a field, where more maniacs seem to pour out of the woodwork. They are here for two things: Shits and giggles. I like to imagine them led by James Remar, one of the coolest actors going, and it remains a mystery as to why he has not been in a Purge movie.

Honestly, he could just play it as Ajax again and I'd be delighted.

Thus two movies begin to unfold: A tale of redemption and heist/rescue/escape movie with out gang of misfits (later aided by mysterious anti-Purge vigilante Katee Sackhoff, who turns up dressed as Robert Ginty from "The Exterminator" and begins taking names) trying to do some good in the world and maybe grab some meds and valuables whilst they're at it; and a rip-roaring slasher movie with James Remar pursuing an elderly woman, her daughter in law and some other poor saps in the American Mid-West.

I'd pay to see that.