Review of The Purge (2013) by Diskmagazine — 17 Jun 2013

Magine a world where crime is basically non-existent and almost everyone has a job and is doing well. Imagine this utopia is in the US in the year 2022. Thanks to a night held once a year called The Purge, this is all somehow possible. Any crime is legal for a night every year until morning comes. That is the basic setting for the movie.

I‘ll cut to the chase. It’s supposed to be a horror sci-fi thriller but it fits none of the two supposed genres. It’s a short film (85 minutes) and the first roughly thirty consist of a wealthy Ethan Hawke and his family gearing up for the night. Other events complicate the family’s safety, and finally there are a few actually decent action scenes about an hour into the film and lead to a predictable yet tasteless ending.

The main villain is a young fella who is the leader of a group of college-aged kids taking part in The Purge (because c’mon, who doesn’t want to kill somebody?) and his acting job is creepily sinister and ends up giving you an overall solid job of being the bad guy. Otherwise, if you come expecting a scary, thrilling, and violent movie, you get none of the first two adjectives and a little bit of the third.

I will have to say that the idea the movie presents is spectacular. It could be turned into an awesome futuristic film if taken seriously and turned into something serious (maybe down the lines of Looper, Cloud Atlas, etc.) so I’ll give writer-director James DeMonaco that.