The Purge

The Purge  is the name given to one 24 hour time period during which all crime is allowed, and all hospitals, police, and other emergency services are shut down, in an annual event sanctioned by the United States government and embraced by its citizens, instituted some time in the future by the country's "New Founding Fathers."  The reasoning behind it, as James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) explains to his family on the eve of one such "purge," is an opportunity for people to rid themselves of a year's worth of pent-up frustration and anxiety over whatever societal or economic pressures befall them.

If that sounds ridiculous it's because it is, but that's the least of this film's problems.  The Purge is an obvious indictment of the Libertarian movement in the United States, which at times seems to favor personal liberties above all else, including public safety, and the "new founding fathers" references a constitutionalist branch of the movement that seems to constantly bemoan activities of the current administration as antithetical to that document upon which the country was founded.  If you are not aware of these things prior to seeing the film, your experience, as obviously intended, will be diminished; The Purge is the first horror film that demands watching an hour of CNN or spending time trolling on Facebook as a prerequisite for understanding it.

But can it really be called a horror film?  At its core The Purge is yet another home invasion film, as Sandin's son feels bad for a homeless man about to be beaten to death and proceeds to deactivate their state-of-the-art home security system, which Sandin makes a living selling, prompting the "purgers" outside to target their house.  But throughout, the film suffers from such wildly opposing tones, it cannot make up its mind whether it wants to be a horror film, an action-thriller, or a political allegory, and winds up being an awkward jumble of all three.  Director James DeMonaco does manage to pull off some engaging action sequences, one involving Hawke single-handedly fighting a group of purgers with a shotgun and a pinball machine, and he does manage to eke out a somewhat effective, if overwrought, message, but with a running time just shy of ninety minutes there just isn't enough time to follow through with anything, and large tonal shifts are left just hanging there, with no appropriate segue.

Whichever one of the film's schizophrenic ideas you are in the mood to see, no doubt its marketing campaign made you chomp at the bit with anticipation.  Strangely enough the film itself seems to want to please everyone, ironic considering its anarchic conceit.  Much to the surprise of this film's one-sheet in particular, however, The Purge is not at all scary, and although the Sandin family endures much hell through the night, the real victims here are the film's audiences, who afterwards won't be able to tell if they've just seen a home invasion thriller or what basically amounts to the world's first cinematic adaptation of an internet meme.

** 1/2 out of *****