It’s been awhile since we had a decent high concept film, and usually there’s some poor execution of a moral message to challenge audience beliefs, but no more as intriguing novelty The Purge is released. Despite being fairly minimalistic, it still manages to argue cases for and against it’s concept whilst personally changing attitudes to crime when pressed.
In a completely changed mentally and booming period of a not-too-far-off-in-the-future USA, the country is back on it’s legs with unemployment and crime down, after hitting rock bottom financially. This is all down to the one night of the year dubbed The Purge where for a 12 hour period all crime is legal. The idea is the strongest survive to better America. However, it proves to be a bent system with those well off managing to survive, barricading, go on hunting parties etc. against the lower classes. One night for the Sandin family, who support The Purge, becomes too much when a homeless man takes shelter in their barricaded home and they’re sieged by a group of prep school students.
With this being a low to mid budget film, there’s not really a stream of big name talent but there are some notable additions. Ethan Hawke (Sinister) is the dad of the Sandins and is a charmer of a security salesman, selling defence systems for middle class and up families. Despite having a slightly frictitious family life behind his mask of perfection he wears to impress the neighbours, James the dad manages to man up when thrown into the deep end. Not a bad turn from Hawke, whose carving out a niche in starring in these low key horror titles every couple years after this, Sinister and Daybreakers.
The modern day queen of sci-fi and fantasy, Lena Headey (Game Of Thrones, Dredd), plays her title down as normal mum Mary. As a soccer mom housewife, she plays it very well and it’s a departure from her recent work. Mary’s evolution, from boring housewife to standing up and taking charge of the family when needs must, was effective, although she did tend to rely on going back into her shell with her kids.
Speaking of kids, Max Burkholder (Parenthood) as Charlie deserves every audience member’s absolute hatred; it’s plain to see that he’s meant to be an outsider with his secret room where he hides from the world and smart with his half tank, half melted baby doll security camera he builds, but did his world-view have to be so limited? He lets in the homeless stranger (an average, kept to the side Edwin Hodge from the Red Dawn remake) after being sat down on the seriousness of The Purge and questioning his parents on the morality of the event. This is after he has access to the secret room which controls the house’s security and sees the small arsenal his parents keep. Hello! McFly! Anybody home?! There’s a reason for all this you know! Also, he doesn’t see the consequences of what he does himself, despite causing distress to the family. Bit of a failure character wise.
The only thing to say about Sandin daughter Zoey (played by Adelaide Kane, Teen Wolf) is that she plays up to being jailbait perfectly in her ridiculous schoolgirls outfit wore all the way through the runtime. Much more worth your time is main “antagonist”, the Prep stranger. Played by Kane’s fellow Australian, Rhys Wakefield (Home And Away) is given a massive ball and runs with it creating a fantastically creepy performance channelling the Joker from The Dark Knight. Well if you’re going to do paranoid prep boy with bloodlust, may as well learn from the best. Absolute joy to watch anytime he came on screen.
First of all, I absolutely bloody loved the concept introduced in this film. The idea of there being no laws so people can get all that pent up rage out of the system to better America as a whole is grand. Fed up with the police? Punch a cop. Sick to death of your wife cheating on you? Shoot her. With there being no laws for the 12 hour period, you could argue that there’s no morality scale anymore so there’s no real good or bad guys.
Political and social commentaries pop up in films from time to time and are usually forced, but The Purge managed to challenge my view on a variety of topics especially with James’ journey as a character. It reminded me of the issues legendary horror director John Carpenter of The Thing and Halloween fame would touch on in his films, whilst being the backdrop for all the horribleness within. Given that this film at times handles the issues with oiled up, wet washing-up gloves, perhaps he would have been a better man to direct this film. Not that debuting director James DeMonaco does a bad job, it’s just you want to see an idea this good handled better.
It’s interesting to see the various attitudes to The Purge. The elder Sandins treat it as a necessary evil, after it has changed America for better for them and given them wealth thanks to James’ job, despite not participating in it. Their neighbours however see it as an excuse to go blow off some steam. Two males are clearly seen strapped into special forces esque military clothing for a hunt. The Sandins politely turn down a neighbours offer of a “Purge Party”. Given that anything is legal lord knows what can happen in one of those! In fact, I did love the humour with the housewife keen to kill her neighbours simply because they could afford the better security system than her.
If you dig deep, there’s plenty of off camera thoughts to chew over. During The Purge itself, no emergency services are available so there’s no point calling for help and adds to the feelings of loneliness and marooned throughout the film, when the house is under siege. Add in a homeless man running around your home and there’s no one coming to help you and it adds a whole dimension to home invasion, forcing the usual white collar Sandins to stand up for themselves when usually wouldn’t.
However, the concept did leave itself to a few moments of unintentional humour, as about 5 minutes after The Purge ends, the entire police and fire departments seem to descend onto the Sandin’s estate. What, were they gearing up the police cars and fire trucks to respond there first or something? Come to think of it, there is simply no way in Hellfire that the insurance companies would touch something as extreme as The Purge – “What’s that sir? Your son got mowed down in a hit and run and you want to claim on his life insurance? Well as you well know your package simply does not cover Purge related activities etc.”…
My few critiques is that it’s a bit short. There’s not much explored in The Purge apart from “one night in the world of…” scenario with interesting tidbits of the concept in the end credits. Suppose the idea is to keep the audience wanting more and it worked with me, but there’s other places and challenges we could have easily taken the characters and concept in. There are problems at times where the film doesn’t know if it wants to go down a horror or thriller route (with so many predictable jump scares) and the ending is fumbled about to a messy conclusion.
That said, it’s still a breath of fresh air and the correct way to challenge an audience at the cinema. A few misgivings aside, it’s well worth your time and a smashing concept supported by a terrific villain performance makes this an unexpected thumbs up. Don’t purge The Purge from your life.
Terry Lewis – @thatterrylewis.
