The Purge
1/4
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Lena Heady, Rhys Wakefield, Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane, Edwin Hodge, Tony Oller
Rated R for Strong Disturbing Violence and Language
In theory, "The Purge" is "The Strangers" mixed with "Minority Report." In reality, it's more like any generic home invasion story mixed with the ugly stepchild of "Turbulence" and "Teeth." Being scared by a movie requires many things, but two are very important: intelligence and identifiable characters. None of those two things is ever in evidence during the 85 minutes that the film takes to tell its story.
Admittedly, the film's premise is interesting, but like the aforementioned "Teeth," it does absolutely nothing with it (in fact, the film's foundation presents more problems than it's worth). After the US approached anarchy, sociologists and psychologists brainstormed The Purge. During a 12 hour period, once a year, just about anything goes. You can rob or destroy anything you can, or you can kill anyone (save for a few important people). Anyway, James Sandin (Hawke) designs security systems to protect people and their homes. It's made him and his family, wife Mary (Heady) and two kids Charlie (Burkholder) and Zoey (Kane), stinking rich (and the envy of the neighbors. Charlie doesn't like the idea of The Purge, so when he sees an injured homeless man (Hodge) running down the street pleading for help, he unlocks the fortress that is his house to let him in. That raises the ire of the group of masked psychos, led by a surprisingly polite lunatic (Wakefield), who demand that the Sandins give up the homeless man or face their wrath.
It's impossible to care about what happens in a movie when the characters are either stupid or psychotic (or in some cases, both). Like "Turbulence," "The Purge" has a set trajectory that it wants to follow but takes the most idiotic ways to get there. The characters' change of heart (which is obligatory) is poorly motivated and unconvincing. A sudden act of violence early on in the film is able to happen only because one character's unbelievable stupidity (yes, hormones can sometimes make us do stupid things, but not this dumb). And the list goes on.
The acting is uninspired. Ethan Hawke is clearly slumming for a paycheck. Despite the fact that they were released six months apart, this film doesn't deserve to be associated with Hawke's last scarefest, "Sinister." That movie was scary as hell. This one is just stupid. Lena Heady tries her best, but she's undone by the script. Rhys Wakefield appears to be channeling a religious guru by way of Patrick Bateman, which would be intriguing if the character wasn't so boring. The Polite Stranger, as he is credited, is about as menacing as a prep school's golden child (which he is dressed as).
Clearly, the film was given the green light based on James DeMonaco's idea. DeMonaco has co-written some good scripts ("The Negotiator," "Jack" and the "Assault on Precinct 13" remake), which makes me wonder if any of the work in those finished projects was actually his. He does so little with his idea that it's almost entirely superfluous; edit it out and the film wouldn't change much. Actually, it might make it better. As countless movies have proved, horror movies work best when we don't know the villain's motives. The Polite Stranger spouts out pretentious babble about the need to "purge" himself, but that only makes him more comical than frightening.
There is one positive thing I can say about this movie: it's short.
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Lena Heady, Rhys Wakefield, Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane, Edwin Hodge, Tony Oller
Rated R for Strong Disturbing Violence and Language
In theory, "The Purge" is "The Strangers" mixed with "Minority Report." In reality, it's more like any generic home invasion story mixed with the ugly stepchild of "Turbulence" and "Teeth." Being scared by a movie requires many things, but two are very important: intelligence and identifiable characters. None of those two things is ever in evidence during the 85 minutes that the film takes to tell its story.
Admittedly, the film's premise is interesting, but like the aforementioned "Teeth," it does absolutely nothing with it (in fact, the film's foundation presents more problems than it's worth). After the US approached anarchy, sociologists and psychologists brainstormed The Purge. During a 12 hour period, once a year, just about anything goes. You can rob or destroy anything you can, or you can kill anyone (save for a few important people). Anyway, James Sandin (Hawke) designs security systems to protect people and their homes. It's made him and his family, wife Mary (Heady) and two kids Charlie (Burkholder) and Zoey (Kane), stinking rich (and the envy of the neighbors. Charlie doesn't like the idea of The Purge, so when he sees an injured homeless man (Hodge) running down the street pleading for help, he unlocks the fortress that is his house to let him in. That raises the ire of the group of masked psychos, led by a surprisingly polite lunatic (Wakefield), who demand that the Sandins give up the homeless man or face their wrath.
It's impossible to care about what happens in a movie when the characters are either stupid or psychotic (or in some cases, both). Like "Turbulence," "The Purge" has a set trajectory that it wants to follow but takes the most idiotic ways to get there. The characters' change of heart (which is obligatory) is poorly motivated and unconvincing. A sudden act of violence early on in the film is able to happen only because one character's unbelievable stupidity (yes, hormones can sometimes make us do stupid things, but not this dumb). And the list goes on.
The acting is uninspired. Ethan Hawke is clearly slumming for a paycheck. Despite the fact that they were released six months apart, this film doesn't deserve to be associated with Hawke's last scarefest, "Sinister." That movie was scary as hell. This one is just stupid. Lena Heady tries her best, but she's undone by the script. Rhys Wakefield appears to be channeling a religious guru by way of Patrick Bateman, which would be intriguing if the character wasn't so boring. The Polite Stranger, as he is credited, is about as menacing as a prep school's golden child (which he is dressed as).
Clearly, the film was given the green light based on James DeMonaco's idea. DeMonaco has co-written some good scripts ("The Negotiator," "Jack" and the "Assault on Precinct 13" remake), which makes me wonder if any of the work in those finished projects was actually his. He does so little with his idea that it's almost entirely superfluous; edit it out and the film wouldn't change much. Actually, it might make it better. As countless movies have proved, horror movies work best when we don't know the villain's motives. The Polite Stranger spouts out pretentious babble about the need to "purge" himself, but that only makes him more comical than frightening.
There is one positive thing I can say about this movie: it's short.
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