The Purge Review - The Insomniac's Cinema

The Purge - Horror Movie Review

2013

Synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes - “If on one night every year, you could commit any crime without facing consequences, what would you do? In The Purge, a speculative thriller that follows one family over the course of a single night, four people will be tested to see how far they will go to protect themselves when the vicious outside world breaks into their home. In an America wracked by crime and overcrowded prisons, the government has sanctioned an annual 12-hour period in which any and all criminal activity-including murder-becomes legal. The police can't be called. Hospitals suspend help. It's one night when the citizenry regulates itself without thought of punishment. On this night plagued by violence and an epidemic of crime, one family wrestles with the decision of who they will become when a stranger comes knocking. When an intruder breaks into James Sandin's (Ethan Hawke) gated community during the yearly lockdown, he begins a sequence of events that threatens to tear a family apart. Now, it is up to James, his wife, Mary (Lena Headey), and their kids to make it through the night without turning into the monsters from whom they hide.”

I was really looking forward to The Purge ever since I saw the trailer a few months back. I thought, “Wow, this might be able to join Cabin in the Woods and Sinister as recent Horror movies that were actually good!” Did it? Well, sort of, I mean it’s not like the movie wasn't enjoyable (because it was) but throughout the film there are things that take away form the movie like: stupid decisions made by the characters or topics that aren't explained properly.

The movie stars Ethan Hawke (James) and the fantastic Lena Heady (Mary) as the parents and even though Ethan’s character seems like a really bad dad in the beginning, I still think they did a good job. Lena as the Mary was great, she had some intense scenes and actually showed that she cared for her children. The daughter (Zoey) was fine but her boyfriend did something really stupid that makes no sense at all. The only person that I thought was really horrible was Charlie, the son. He made the more stupid decisions than anyone else in the whole movie and I don’t want to sound mean but could they really not have gotten a better actor who was less dopey-looking to play him? The intruders/invaders were kinda dumb (I cannot imagine that those masks are easy to see through!) but the leader was fantastic and really reminded me of the main psycho from funny games...

The whole Purge was pulled off quite well in my opinion (the opening credits were shocking and really showed what happens during the Purge) but I wish that they gave a bit more backstory about the origin of the Purge and the “new founding fathers”. During the movie there are these news segments shown TV where people discuss why the purge is so successful and I found it really interesting, it made the Purge and the movie’s universe seem more real. I do however think that the pacing was bad at times (especially during the last 15 minutes of the movie) because of this the ending felt very anticlimactic…

All in all, The Purge was an entertaining movie with some stupid moments. If they added more to the story it might have been a lot better. It’s wasn’t fantastic but it wasn’t horrible either: 6/10

***SPOILER TALK***

This doesn’t really form part of  my review but I just want to discuss some of the “stupid moments” I mentioned earlier. Firstly, the neighbours are supposed to hate James and his whole family because he sold them security systems and made a lot of money, because of this they want to kill him? It makes no sense, they bought expensive security systems from him to keep themselves safe(which they don’t even need since they go out to “Purge” the whole night) and then resent him because he got a raise…

The other big issue I had was with Henry (Zoey’s Boyfriend), I understand why he exists but why did he have to try and kill James? Did he really think that Zoey would be completely fine with the fact that he killed her father? And after he tries to shoot James and then gets shot himself it seems like no-one is even surprised that Henry did it.

Also, when the intruders do finally get in the house they all get killed in like 10 minutes, which is understandable since they are all completely incompetent, for example, they failed to kill Charlie (who clearly doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “hide” since he used his flashlight to show his exact position…)  It also bothered me that they two of the intruders were so surprised to find James with a gun moments after he fired a shot (keep in mind they are in the same house!) Ther are more things that I thought were dumb but that's all for now!

***END OF SPOILER TALK***

Thanks for reading! Please remeber to comment and follow my blog!
-The Insomniac's Cinema