The Purge

Cast of Characters:
James Sandin - Ethan Hawke
Mary Sandin - Lena Headey
Charlie Sandin - Max Burkholder
Zoey Sandin - Adelaide Kane
Bloody Stranger - Edwin Hodge
Polite Stranger - Rhys Wakefield

Director - James DeMonaco
Screenplay - James DeMonaco
Rated R for strong disturbing violence and some language

      Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke reunites with James DeMonaco, director of the 2005 remake of John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, in the sci-fi thriller The Purge.

      The year is 2022. America is a nation reborn, established by a new group of Founding Fathers who have managed to bring the unemployment down to 1% and crime to an all-time low. To achieve such a feat, the government has implemented what is known as "The Purge". One day each year, for a twelve hour period, all crime - even murder - is legalized. During that time all emergency operators are closed down. There are a few rules though, such as all government officials are granted immunity and any form of weaponry listed above a "Class 4" is prohibited.

      James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) has earned quite the successful living for both him and his family selling hi-tech security lockdown systems for those in his neighborhood. While everyone else takes part in the seemingly cathartic release of The Purge, Sandin, along with his wife Mary (Lena Headey) and two children Zoey (Adelaide Kane) and Charlie (Max Burkholder) choose to stay home under lockdown. As James tells Charlie, they don't feel the need to act on their so called "urges".

      Things take a turn for the worse though when after The Purge has started, Charlie lets in a bloody stranger (Edwin Hodge) out of sympathy for the man's desperate cries for help from the outside. That's when the Sandin family are greeted by a group of masked college students led by a man simply known as "Polite Stranger" (Rhys Wakefield), who have all been hunting down the bloody stranger. They give James an ultimatum - release the man to them before they bring in reinforcements capable of breaking into their home, or have both him and his family die together with the man.

      When I first saw the trailer for this film I didn't have too much in terms of expectations for it, but I found the premise intriguing. Now after seeing it, I view this film in the exact same way I viewed Justin Timberlake's film In Time - an intriguing story utterly wasted by a weak script with crap dialogue. It's really a shame and not just considering the story, but also 'cause Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey are two terrific performers essentially given very little to nothing to work with here. In particular with Ethan Hawke, I was pleasantly surprised by last year's horror film Sinister, but this film just goes to show that even good actors can't do much when the script ain't there. Rhys Wakefield is nothing more than a cartoonishly horrible villain ("Just let us purge!"). His performance is neither threatening, menacing, or chilling. On the other hand, it is garbage. The neighbors come off as too robotic, and at times I was wondering if they were going for a Pleasantville, The Truman Show, or The Stepford Wives angle, but in the end you could probably chalk it up to just flat performances.

      Any intriguing premise has the potential to pose thought provoking questions for the viewer. If all crime were legalized for a certain amount of time, could we really bring ourselves to committing one? How would we personally feel after each Purge event has ended? Could we trust even our own friends and loved ones? Instead of delving deep into answering those questions, and despite a few effectively chilling shots, writer/director James DeMonaco settles for giving us just another tired and mindlessly violent showdown between the Sandin family and those smug, pretentious college kids. James even utters, "This is our house!" Wow, how often have we heard that line before, Kevin McCallister? Once it heads into lazy slasher film territory you're left thinking what's the point of the opening, high-concept premise now? They don't go in depth at all into any other crimes other than murder, hence why you're left with just a slasher film. We get a few cheapened speeches here and there in the beginning about the importance of The Purge, but then it slowly devolves into a mess, and quite frankly, by the time it was all said and done, I didn't really give a shit who survived. Plus, despite being under an hour and a half, this film seemed to drag on for an eternity. Instead of wasting your time with this film, check out 1971's Straw Dogs with Dustin Hoffman and Alfred Hitchcock's underrated Rope with the great Jimmy Stewart. Both films, while not like The Purge, deal with similar aspects and are much superior films. I give The Purge a D (★).

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