The Purge

The Purge (2013)

Well, this is either the stupidist movie ever or it's a mishmash of something audacious and creative and a slasher film with campy expectations. It doesn't make the grade as a great movie mostly because of an hour of redundant ax-wielding around a big suburban house. But the first half hour is really great—some potential here that went aground fast.

The premise is clear right away: it's the near future, maybe 2021, in the United States. Once a year for twelve hours everyone is allowed to be an ultra criminal without repercussion. None. Kind of like Devil's Night in Detroit without any cops. You can murder, destroy things, be a general naughty boy or girl, and have no criminal consequences the next day. Hurray!

Everything is just okay! Or not.

Well, the reason this works in the first half hour is the calm, steady, well appointed believablility of the acting and scenario in this fancy (upscale American) house. Ethan Hawke plays a great regular, successful, nice Dad. His wife (Lena Headey) is a sweetheart in the clichéd way (she is sadly the typical Hollywood female, incompetent but nice to have around). They have two children in the standard mode, talented and slightly disaffected.

So 7pm rolls around and the family has a fortress of a house (steel doors drop down in front of the windows and doors). So they watch on their monitors the calm and then the lack of calm on the nice street outside, at night. And things go sour badly.

Okay, so a great set up. Of course, if you think about it, it's about as believable as zombies. And so therefore you can go with it if you decide to. So the public can expunge their violence by killing a few people and the other 364 days are crime free. Great. Except, well, uh, really?? Yeah, it implies that we would kill without compunction, and that the next day you would walk by your neighbor, who just killed a few people during the Purge, and say, "Good morning Mrs. Johnson," as if all was fine. And there is no guilt. Or feeling. Or morality.

But that's if you think about it. A lot of Hollywood's idea of the future is not meant to be parsed out and logical. Look at "The Giver," or even (yes) "Avatar." Etc.

So on a simpler level we have the problem of a movie that turns into a slasher film. Because the bad people do, of course, get into the house (you saw that coming) and the family tries to defend itself. This part of the movie is not especially well made, or well acted, or original. It destroys all potential, and makes it a disturbing bore.

The Purge (2013)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Annoying, dumb and eventually cruel film dealing with the one day of the year when America allows you to kill anyone who want without being punished. This "purge" is supported by a security system seller (Ethan Hawke) and his wife (Lena Headey) but during the 12-hour period they find themselves the target of a gang of murderers. THE PURGE pretty much gave away its story during the theatrical trailer and I thought to myself that we were going to get something fresh or something that has a few interesting ideas but just didn't work. Sadly there are some interesting ideas floating around but the screenplay is simply so bad and so clichéd that it pretty much kills anything positive. The biggest problem is that the film is never scary, which is just downright disappointing. Another problem is that the film itself doesn't know what to do with its "free day to kill" idea. It takes a while for the viewer to warm up to this futuristic world where we can kill but as soon as you accept this "law" the screenplay then pulls a quick one and starts to challenge the morals of such a thing. We then get a bunch of political non-sense thrown in just to make us question the whole thing. Why sell a film on an idea and then not know where to get with it? Even more annoying is that this film contains some of the dumbest and most annoying characters in the history of cinema. Yes, the history of cinema. The couple's young son is someone I wanted to be off the screen ASAP. The daughter isn't much better but just wait until the two twists that happen. Both Hawke and Headey give good performances as does the rest of the cast. If you're expecting a horror film then you're going to be disappointed because even though there's quite a bit of violence, for the most part this is nothing more than a rip-off of STRAW DOGS but set in the future with this one "change." Sadly, THE PURGE just never works and in the end you're left with a major disappointment and just a cheap excuse to kill.

From the producers of Paranormal Activity (as is all horror films these days) The Purge tells the story of a near future were crime is at an all time low and unemployment stands at under 1% of the US population, to compensate for one night a year all crime (including murder) is legal for 12 hours allowing society some kind of release.

The film revolves around the Sandin family who are confronted by a group of college students hunting a man on the night of the Purge who the family had allowed into their home after lockdown. The Purgers (lead by Rhys Wakefield) drastically try to break into the family's home causing James (Ethan Hawke) and Mary (Lena Headey) to protect their children from the invaders in order to survive the night.

The main problem with the film is the premise itself, whilst interesting is filled with flaws and holes that just make the whole idea ridiculous. Such as what happens to the serial killers and career criminals of this world? Do they just control their urges to kill or steal for the other 364 days until the next Purge, as well what if someone has a heart attack on the night of The Purge? Is it just a case of bad luck you chose the wrong night to need medical care?

Despite the flaws of the premise, the film repeatedly ignores the possibilities of the premise, instead of exploring the ideas behind the Purge or the events that occur on the night of the Purge from different perspectives and situations. Instead the film settles for a typical home invasion story that although done well, is nothing we haven't seen done in many other films. The Purge in the end seems to only be the premise of this film to stop the age old question of "Why don't they just call the police?" in home invasion films.

To the films credit it is quite subtle, there's a running theme that the Purge is just an excuse for the upper classes to exterminate the poor, driven by all the attackers wearing prep school blazers and the person they are chasing wearing dog tags around his neck. The film also contains some strong performances, especially from Ethan Hawke (Training Day, Lord of War) and Lena Headey (Dredd, Game of Thrones) who carry the film throughout. The film also has a twist near the end which allows the audience to get inside the heads of the people during this night.

That cant be said for the leader of the Purger's played by Rhys Wakefield (Sanctum, Home and Away)whose performance is slightly cringe worthy, hes trying to be psychotic yet in control of the proceedings but it just comes across as a amateur dramatics' version of The Joker. He just never seems like a really threat and just a creepy next door neighbour.

The film also contains some bizarre and just plain weird set pieces, such as the families' son who builds a spy camera on a chard baby doll on the top of a rhino tank from Warhammer 40,000. The thing looks like a demented contraption from Sid's bedroom in Toy Story.

Overall, The Purge is an OK home invasion film, there are moments of suspense and a couple of jump scares are effective. The wasted potential of the premise is the films main downfall which could have lead to a more effective and possible original film then what we got in the end.

The idea is intriguing. For twelve hours a year all crime is legal, including murder; do what you want and face no consequence. All emergency services are suspended and with the exception of an unexplained restriction on weaponry, and certain members of the public being out of bounds as targets, there is nothing to stop you doing what you wish. The result is a venting of frustration and anger, a purging of demons, as well as the eradication of the poor and those unable to defend themselves. The end result of this annual purge is extremely low unemployment and crime, and a fantastic economy; "a nation reborn", where the weak are prey and the strong survive. One of the strong is James Sandin, who sells security systems to fellow high-flyers; these obviously come in most useful on the night of the purge. Of course on the night in question, things go rather wrong and the Sandin family find their home under siege, following their son Max's generous act of letting a victimised stranger in.

For a second, put aside the rather obvious holes in the idea when considered as a practise encouraged at a national level, even put aside the cynical nature of the movie, and we can see the idea may have started out as a distressing vision of a near future, a terrifying "other reality". Indeed, 'The Purge' takes its cue from a lot of previous work that has done similarly; you don't have to look too hard to see various elements of 'A Clockwork Orange', '1984', 'Lord of the Flies' and 'Battle Royale'. The problem is that unlike those works, and unlike 'Straw Dogs', with which it shares more than a little DNA, this story has been watered down to a locked room domestic thriller; a potentially incendiary political fable is devoid of most of that which would have made it so. This is actually typical of writer/director James DeMonaco, who is responsible for the screenplay for the remake of 'Assault on Precinct 13', a film which again extracted a lot of the original's rough edges and tough moments to leave a flat, action driven thriller. Similarly, the scope of the film is rather narrow; with early implication that there will be a study of repressed violence and how the night is used as an excuse, it is then disappointing to see the story steers frustratingly wide of all matters other than murder. The film lacks the gumption to tackle the disturbing elements of our unchecked nature in a way that Cronenberg would have done.

So what we're looking at here is a film which, in different hands may have proved to be a controversial and stirring piece of work, but with DeMonaco scared to grasp the nettle, we end up with a flat, rather tame film, which is given some lift by its better elements, such as the performances and some of the fight sequences. Lacking bite, with a frustrating amount of exposition and not enough dissection of issues, 'The Purge' falls short of what it should have been.

This is not to take away from Ethan Hawke's solid performance, or some of the more effective scenes, but what we would give to have seen this in the hands of Michael Haneke.

It's 2022 in America. Unemployment is at 1% and crime is at an all-time low except one night every year. The law allows many forms of crime including even murder in that 12 hour period. James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) sells home security and is having his best year. He has gathered his family (Lena Headey, Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane) to wait out the night. Things don't turn out well starting with the daughter's boyfriend. Then the son allows a vagrant to enter their house who is followed by a mob intend on killing that homeless person.

The premise is interesting and original reminding me of Sparta and the Helots. It's certainly a good way to get into a horror movie. However there are a lot of aspects that went uninvestigated in this movie. Everybody has enemies and it's an obvious avenue to go for. For example, he's the best salesman which seems to me to be an obvious reason for other co-workers to kill him. Writer/director James DeMonaco just didn't think through all the possibilities in this world.

The obvious fix is to make the purge be only against the poor and the helpless. There could be rules about harboring the hunted. The family lets in that homeless guy which could make them fair game. I'm willing to not harp on it but I must deduct a point for the mistake.

When the power goes out, the darkness is not a good way to shoot a film. However when the mob gets vehicles which could light up the house, the lighting looks good. All the light and shadows provide great horror opportunities. I wish more of the movie take place in that lighting scheme.

Another missed opportunity is the ticking clock. It could have been a great vehicle for raising the tension. Instead the movie wastes this away by sitting around to run out the clock. It's not the most compelling climax.

It's a great original premise with loads of opportunities. With a few more tweaks, this could be a great horror franchise. It has a built-in morality play. The premise doesn't even need any one particular character to carry it either. This could run for a long time if they put in a few fixes.