Review: The Purge
By Christine Petralia
Image courtesy of Universal Pictures
June 10, 2013
Spoiler Alert
Though dubbed a horror film, I wouldn’t necessarily categorize it as such. A thriller, yes. But not so much horror. And this is one of those films that is good in theory, but the plot was poorly executed. In fact, I feel the writers of The Purge took a lesson straight from screenwriting 101, in that all of the foreshadowing in the beginning made me figure out the end pretty quickly.
If you plan on seeing this at some point and want to be surprised, stop reading this now.
It is the year 2022 and there is a new government called the New Founding Fathers of America. As a way to keep the crime rate low, each year, for 12 hours, the government institutes something called The Purge, where all criminal activity, including murder, rape, robbery, etc., is legal. In fact, during those 12 hours, police and emergency services are unavailable. Many view The Purge as a way to get out negative feelings so that during the year, there is peace throughout the United States.
As part of The Purge, people can view all of the crimes throughout the country via surveillance cameras. As a sign to say you support The Purge, many homes put flowers on their front lawns.
James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) is a home security developer. He has basically sold home security systems to his entire neighborhood and beyond, to make him the envy of the area. He’s a very cocky bastard, but has family values as played out through the film. His wife Mary (Lena Headey) is a stay-at-home mom dealing with their teenage daughter Zoey (Adelaide Kane) and Charlie (Max Burkholder). Zoey lashes out when her parents forbid her from seeing an older guy, Henry (Tony Oller), while Charlie questions a lot about The Purge.
As The Purge begins, Sandin locks his family safely inside, assuring them they have one of his top-of-the-line security systems. However, Henry has stayed inside, and in an annoying moment of weakness, Charlie disarms the system long enough to help someone who is being chased outside. Just as Sandin and his wife see this stranger, Henry comes down to ‘talk’ to him and draws a gun. Armed with a gun himself, Sandin returns fire, killing Henry. A distraught Zoey runs and hides, while the stranger does the same. Soon, a group of guys and gals, dressed in creepy costumes show up on the Sandins’ doorstep asking for the stranger, as he is their target for The Purge.
And in a stupid, annoying move, the group cuts the power on the home, while counting down the minutes until they break in. Mary tries to get the assurance from Sandin about the security, however, he informs her that there are weaknesses, as the systems aren’t tested for worst-case scenarios, such as this.
As the parents try to find the stranger to send him back outside, the kids get annoying with Zoey still ‘hiding’ and Charlie trying to hide the stranger to keep him safe, all in the dark. This is where your ‘scary’ comes in. Sandin finds himself forced with a decision to fight to protect his family or keep his family safe by giving up the stranger. And after a while, the group breaks in and all hell breaks loose. People die, people live. And finally, in that foreshadowing I talked about earlier, the jealous neighbors come to the rescue only to turn on the Sandins because they hate them.
Don’t worry, I won’t give it all away, but you’ll probably figure out the rest as I did. I love, love this idea of no laws, but it was very straight forward. No twists, no real scariness, just people running around their own house with flashlights trying to find a stranger who may or may not be a danger to them. Kane and Burkholder are annoying as the kids. Burkholder plays a very similar character to his Parenthood character, in that sometimes you just wanted to punch him in the face because he questioned things too much and put his family in danger. Hawke did an OK job as the annoyingly cocky salesman who actually turns out to have a heart in the end. But I think Headey is the real star, as the strong woman who actually does protect her family and knows how to kick the crap out of someone.
Since there aren’t really any other ‘horror-thrillers’ out right now, I suggest you check it out. But if you can wait for something scarier, you can see this one at home. Just keep the lights on.
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