The Purge

Perhaps one day there will be an interdisciplinary study of films that deal with income equality. Earlier this year we had Snowpiercer; on a much lower scale of quality was last year's The Purge, which already has one sequel.

The set-up of The Purge is that the government ("The New Founding Fathers," which sounds very ominous) has established one night a year as a law-free night--the citizens can do just about anything, including murder. This is said to act as a catharsis, getting all of that hate and rage out of one's system. This makes no sense to me--it would take more than one night for a lot of people, but apparently it works, as it has lowered the crime rate drastically.

But of course, as with most things in America, this disproportionately hurts the poor. The rich can barricade themselves behind security systems, so it's the poor and disabled who are exposed to the bloodlust of others. In a way, it's less an outlet for violence than it is a population control.

This is kind of heady stuff, but the movie doesn't deliver. Ethan Hawke, looking like the "after" in a plastic surgeon ad, is a security system salesman. He lives in a big house in a gated community, and plans on spending purge night locked inside with his wife (Lena Headey, in a ghastly wig) and their two teenage children. But things start to go wrong when his daughter's boyfriend sneaks inside, and even worse when the compassionate son (who looks disarmingly like Christina Ricci circa The Addams Family) lets in a homeless man who is being hunted by smarmy rich kids.

The Purge cost only 3 million and made close to 90, which made it one of the biggest earners of the last few years. Unfortunately, that 3 million shows. Essentially the film is a one-set movie, with characters sneaking around in the dark trying to kill each other. The problem is we the audience have no sense of the layout of the house, so the director and writer, James Demonaco, can have people saved at the last minute anytime he wants.

Also, the sociological framework aside, this is no different than many other home invasion movies of the last several decades, going back to Straw Dogs. The Purge may make interesting statements--the homeless man is pointedly a black man who is referred to as hunters as "swine"--but it doesn't do it very effectively.