Movie Review: The Purge
Warning: This review does contain spoilers for the movie The Purge. Go and watch it.
“You just gave our son a gun. You wanna tell me what the hell we’re doing?”
What happens when on one day of the year all crime is legal? It’s an interesting concept right. A horror thriller movie starring Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey, and produced by Blumhouse? Where do I sign up? This film launched a franchise that is soon to possess six films and two seasons of TV. It would be easy to go into this movie with high expectations, but does it deliver on its cool concept? Does it capitalise on its talented lead stars? Is The Purge good?
The films opening credit scenes show us the violence of previous Purges, teasing the violence and chaos that we theoretically should be seeing later in the movie. We then cut to James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) returning home shortly before the Purge is to begin. James lives with his wife Mary (Lena Headey) and their kids, high-achieving daughter Zoey (Adelaide Kane) and something’s-a-little-bit-off-with-this-kid son Charlie (Max Buckholder). James sells security systems to the fellow wealthy residents of his neighbourhood, and it becomes quickly obvious where this movie is going.
This is going to be a home invasion movie, a far less interesting use of the concept than what they could’ve done with it. In fact the Purge concept is sort of redundant in setting up this kind of movie, a basic ‘bad guys find out where the good guy lives’ set up is easier to execute and allows more time for more action. You don’t have to spend time setting up the rules of the movie and the twists are more dramatic. So why the Purge? It’s here to set up social commentary (Yay!).
When young Charlie, who for some reason is allowed to sit and watch video of the violence going on outside, sees some random bleeding black man yelling out for help he disables the family’s security system. Because of course you would entrust a child with the code to the one thing ensuring the families safety. The man enters the house before James can reactivate the security system. When they go to confront the stranger, Zoey and her older boyfriend (who dad doesn’t approve of and snuck into the house pre lockdown), start to come down the stairs and he tries to MURDER HIS GIRLFRIENDS FATHER. Whaaaaaaaaaat? It was at this point I became somewhat disinterested in this movie.
Then the invaders arrive. They want the black man, who we find out is homeless, sent out so they can kill him. The rhetoric is that he’s poor and so he deserves to die. If the Sandin’s don’t send him out in time they will break into the house and everyone will die, this is the film’s attempt to introduce stakes. Apparently these security systems that James sells actually are quite easily penetrable. So we now spend time trying to find the homeless man, the daughter gets caught because for some reason she chooses not to regroup with the family (this family is so dumb), the homeless man (who is a veteran) gets caught, and then they have a change of heart and decide not to turn him over because morals.
The movie completely lacks tension. The film is not shot in a way that gives the house a sense of space. We don’t feel closed in and claustrophobic, the dark isn’t used to give us some jump scares, and the action is so so. Despite decent performances from Hawke and Headey I don’t really care about the characters. After the initial invaders are dealt with by the neighbours and James dies, the neighbours turn on Headey in a move that was so ridiculously predictable because in the lone scene with the neighbours at the start of the movie they pretty much tell her they don’t like her. Just as predictable was the homeless man they spared being the one to save them. The commentary of rich people seeing no value in poor people, that if they treat them right they can help them, and that rich people will turn on rich people wasn’t insightful or well done or even made sense.
Ultimately this movie just isn’t very interesting. The concept of the Purge is one that seems fun and has a lot of possibilities, perhaps the sequels do it better. This film, however, is bland. It’s not scary, nor thrilling, I don’t care about the characters, the plot is barely there, it’s not over the top in a fun way, it’s not even so bad it’s good. It’s just there. It gets higher than the lowest possible rating because Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey give decent enough performances, but even then I’m conflicted.
I rate The Purge as:
A Masterpiece
Essential Viewing
Highly Recommended
Recommended
Meh
Garbage