The Purge

"The Purge" is a story set in the not too distant future where under new laws set by Americas new founding fathers for one day a year basically all crime is legal, including murder. This premise sets up what turns out to be a completely effective movie and one of the sleeper hits of the summer movie season.

Ethan Hawke stars here and continues with his mainstream Hollywood comeback. Between "Purge" and last years kinda creepy "Sinister" Hawke has made a nice niche' in the B movie horror/thriller genre. Hawke plays James Sandin who sells state of the art security systems to protect upper class citizens from the dangers of the annual purge, including his own family of 4 which includes Lena Headey (Game of Thrones) as his wife. A series of events lead the Sandin's youngest son to let a random homeless man who is being chased by "purgers" into their home for protection. From here "The Purge" becomes a nice mishmash of "Taken" and "Funny Games".

"The Purge" comes from the producer of recent low budget "scary" movies like "Insidious" and the "Paranormal Activity" franchise Jason Blum. Much like uber producer Jerry Bruckheimer has signature aspects in all his films Blum's films do as well. "The Purge" is definitely more of a domestic thriller than horror/scary but it does include low budget scares such as people jumping out of shadows and loud ominous orchestra score during high tense moments. James DeMonaco is the first time director here and can set up a high tense scene very well and though his script is not very talk heavy he gets his point and intention clearly across.

The main flaw with "The Purge" is that even though the movies running time is a perfect for its genre 85 minutes long I felt that there was a lot left on the table in terms of backstory. What exactly were the events that were the causation for the purge to become legal? Who are the governing bodies who set this law up? Also the main villains in the story really have no story other than a creepy monologue by the main baddie towards the beginning of the film, it leaves a lot to be desired on the table. The film also takes itself almost too seriously, implementing more humor into a sick, deranged scenario a'la "Funny Games" could benefit if any sequel(s) are to be made.

The Premise is the selling point here, if that doesn't work then the movie doesn't work. Coincidentally or not, the recent events with the NSA are kind of a companion piece to the story here in terms of how much involvement should the government have in your life? Questions such as "Is killing one to save my family the right thing to do?" are asked throughout, for a movie mainly targeted at the 20 something crowd it has a lot of big ideas, again something refreshing in this era of sequels and remakes that we are currently in.

So the overall success of the execution in "The Purge" makes it a welcome change and a must see.