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The Purge
USA / France 2013
produced by
Michael Bay, Jason Blum, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller, Sébastien K. Lemercier for Blumhouse, Why Not Productions, Platinum Dunes/Universal
directed by James DeMonaco
starring Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane, Edwin Hodge, Rhys Wakefield, Tony Oller, Arija Bareikis, Tom Yi, Chris Mulkey, Tisha French, Dana Bunch, Peter Gvozdas, John Weselcouch, Alicia Vela-Bailey
written by James DeMonaco, music by Nathan Whitehead
Purge
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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The USA has been thriving of late, the economy is booming while both
unemployment and crime are at almost incredible record lows. The reason,
once a year, for 12 hours, there's a "purge", where all laws are
suspended, all crimes, including murder, are permitted, to purify the
nation and act as a catharsis. Now of course, this hits primarily the poor
and underprivileged as the rich all have their security systems that will
keep the purgers out of their homes. And hardest hit are of course the
homeless, as they're the easiest targets. James Sandin (Ethan Hawke)
sells the most effective security system in the marked, and thus has made
himself a fortune from the purge. Of course, he's so busy raking in riches
that he doesn't see his family slowly drifting apart, his young son
Charlie (Max Burkholder) questions the whole concept of the purge, his
teen daughter Zoey (Adelaide Kane) is sulking since he forbid her to see
her boyfriend Henry (Tony Oller), and his wife Mary (Lena Heady) isn't
always up to handling family affairs. But at least for purge night they
should be fine, locked into their fancy home. Thing is, Henry has snuck
into the house to kill James - not a crime on purge night - and Charlie
lets in a homeless on the run. And while James manages to shoot Henry in
pure self defense, the homeless manages to hide somewhere in the house,
while outside a mob who want to lynch the homeless guy gathers, and they
promise to bring heavy machinery to tear down the house should James not
be willing to release him to the mob. James wants to do just that, and a
wild hunt for the guy inside the house ensues, but finally he gets his
hands on the homeless man - and only has an epiphany when he sees how much
his family disapproves. And then the mob breaks into the house, now intent
on killing not only the homeless guy but the entire family - but the
family puts up a good fight, and when all seems lost, the neighbours show
up, annihilating the wild mob. Thing is, the neighbours only want to kill
the Sandins themselves ... Now the basic premise of The
Purge - suspend law for 12 hours a year for the sake of prosperity -
is of course absolutely ridiculous. And that said, it would be a great
base for social commentary or even biting satire. Unfortunately, this film
is neither, it just uses the premise as groundwork for a very generic
thriller, one that really gives away most of its plot and plottwists way
too early, and one that doesn't really aim for originality. Sure, as a
run-of-the-mill thriller, it's somewhat ok, it's well-enough directed
(without aiming for brilliance) and acted, and it looks glossy enough to
appeal to a mainstream audience, but in its core it's just little more
than a piece of cinematic fluff.
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