The Purge (2013)

July 17, 2018

Directed by: James DeMonaco

Written by: James DeMonaco

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Max Burkholder

Budget: $2,700,000 - $3,000,000

Quotes: Our target for this year's purge is hiding in your home. You have one hour to find him and give him to us or we will kill all of you. We will be coming in.

Trivia: According to the director, the idea for The Purge happened like this: He and his wife were driving on the freeway when a drunk driver cut them off nearly killing them. After both cars stopped, the other driver's lack of remorse enraged DeMonaco enough to engage in a fistfight and police eventually had to get involved. After the incident was over, DeMonaco's wife turned to him and commented how great it would be to have one free murder a year.

This was the first time I had seen a Purge movie. Somehow I had missed the big Purge hype over the past five years for no particular reason. The movie was incredibly successful at the box office and nearly all my friends had seen it. I knew the basic plot of the movie and it seemed like a really interesting premise so I decided to finally watch it last night. Unfortunately, I was not blown away by the picture. There were definitely some great moments, but overall the film was fairly predictable and the Purge premise was hamstringed by the film's plot taking place as a home invasion movie.

The film takes place in 2022 when the U.S. government has declared an annual "purge" where laws no longer exist for twelve hours so people can purge their negative thoughts, emotions, and desires. The movie follows the Sandins, a recently wealthy family who made their fortune selling security systems to other rich folks to be used exclusively on the annual purges. During the Purge, the father (Ethan Hawke) is attacked by one of his daughter's boyfriends while his son let's a hurt stranger into the house. The father is able to kill the daughter's boyfriend but the hurt stranger hides in the house. Moments later a group of people wearing masks approach the house claiming the hurt stranger killed their friend, he is a disgusting bum, and if they do not release him to them, they will enter the house and kill them. From there, the family in the house go back and forth between hunting/hurting the stranger and hiding him until the masked group eventually come into the house. There is a big battle with a couple no so subtle twists.

Overall, the acting is pretty solid. Ethan Hawke does a good job of a man forced into a situation to protect his family and the wife, played by Game of Throne's Lena Headey, becomes the badass of the film. Also, the son, played by Max Burholder (from Parenthood... I don't know if there are many people who watch horror movies and Parenthood... that Venn Diagram center has to be fairly small... but he is playing the same exact character... better watch out... you're being type-casted) does a good job as the voice of morality. I didn't so much like the villain character. He is supposed to be a rich Reaganite jerk, which he is, but his behavior is just so over-the-top that it becomes silly. I certainly do not mind over-the-top behavior, but it just seemed out of place in this movie.

The entire movie takes place within the Sandin house which defeats the purpose of the movie's premise. A movie about twelve hours of nationwide lawlessness that takes place entirely within a home is nothing more than a home invasion movie. There is no real difference between this film and Panic Room or You're Next (also about a group of masked strangers which came out two years before The Purge). There is teaser footage all throughout the credits with camera footage of previous purge murders happening outside, but all we get is one home invasion. The director commented that if he was to make another one, it would happen throughout a city similar to Escape From New York. Now that is a Purge movie I'd like to see. Hopefully the next Purge movie delivers.

The Purge villains are dopey rich college kids who have apparently used the lawless night to attack the less fortunate, a "homeless" black veteran. I put homeless in quotes because that is their claim and the only reason I know he is a veteran is because he is wearing dog tags. I read that he is the only one who is in the next movies so I am a bit curious about his story. Anyways, the masked gang are not very good at killing. Ethan Hawke's character alone kills five or six of them before they get him. By the end of the purge, they have only killed one family member while almost a dozen of theirs are killed.

There were two aspect of the film that really captivated me though. First, I found it fascinating the look at the mother and father's characters as they change throughout that night. It is interesting to me how unthinkable behavior becomes normalize when people are afraid. The mother stabs a penknife into the hurt stranger's wound a couple times while he is tied up in order to convince him to not move so they can tie him to a chair. Also, the couple did not think twice but to release the hurt stranger fearing their family could be hurt. The situation seems to be what Primo Levy (scientist, author, and holocaust survivor) referred to as the Grey Zone (this was specifically in reference to the Sonderkommandos… the special force of imprisoned Jews in the concentration camps who were forced to do the work that the Nazis had trouble psychologically completed, such as feeding the dead bodies into the crematoriums). The Grey Zone is a situational space where morality no longer exists. Is it right to give up the hurt stranger to be killed? Is it right to harbor him and risk your family's safety? There is no answer.

SPOILERS

Second, I liked the twists towards the end with the neighbors. They weren't exactly huge surprises but it was a nice touch to the ending of the movie. First, the Sandins seem like they might be able to battle of the masked gang, and then they become overpowered. Then the neighbors come and pick off the masked gang and it once again appears the Sandins will be fine until the neighbors turn on the Sandins themselves as a jealous revenge and it seems like it is all over. Finally, the hurt stranger comes to save the day and he and the mother force the neighbors to wait until the Purge is over.

As they are waiting, the neighbors show no remorse and the main one to talk, a blonde woman, seems so detached from the events that it appears as if she's in a dream. Perhaps this is a statement about violence, revenge, and rage, that it disassociates us for each other and ourselves. One odd thing happened to myself during this scene and I think it might've been intentional on the director's part. As they were waiting out the purge and especially after the blonde woman tried to reach for the gun, I found myself wanting the mother to kill them all. I could feel the sense of vigilante justice revenge in me wanting blood. I found myself thinking similar, to a much lesser extent but similar nonetheless, to the characters in the film. I hope the next one gives us our "Escape From New York" type of Purge.