The Purge offers more debate than scares, but that it’s
necessarily a bad thing
Ethan Hawke is a bit of an enigma. He is someone that has
made a career out of being forgettable. While you have a movie like Training
Day (2001) that has been critical and commercial successes, but then you don’t
really see many other films in his past that have been able to be both. His
movies are either box office bombs that no one sees or don’t make it to the
theater at all. When he is critically praised for a role it is usually a
limited release film that, again, no one sees. So to see him in a film that is
not only a critical success (most critics agree that the subject matter is an
explosive subject and well handled) but is also #1 at the box office is a nice
surprise…even if it took him 12 years to do again.
Storyline: In 2022, the United States is experiencing a
success like never before. No crime, no unemployment, and seemingly the people
of the US are happier. Credit for this “utopia” is given to The Purge. One
night a year when everything is legal. Arson. Murder. Rape. Nothing is off
limits. When home security salesman, James (Hawke), and his family lock down
for the night they are presented with a problem. The target for a purge
“hunting” has made it in to their home and the group declares that if their
target is not returned they will kill everyone in the house. Decisions must be
made that will end in the deaths of many. Who will survive the purge and who
will perish?
This is probably one of the most interesting concepts that I
have seen in a while. The “privileged” think that this is a proper cleansing of
the soul for a year’s worth of hate, anger and frustration, but in reality the
“swine” are being hunted down like animals in a case of literal class warfare.
Sure, the unemployment rates and crime rates are lower during the year…because
privileged people with the means to arm themselves heavily are released into
the streets and given permission to murder those that they see as “beneath
them”. When those people are taken out of the equation the statistics OBVIOUSLY
change. So many questions are brought up by the first half of this movie.
The second half of this movie does away with the ambiguity
of choice and consequences. It becomes a siege movie that is more about
protecting family and fighting off intruders than about social change. But the
seeds of those questions have been planted and the movie moves on. While I
thought that the ending was a little lack luster I thought that the movie was the
most original that I have seen since In Time (2011).
Worth the admission? Without a doubt! The movie is unnerving
and creepy in the beginning and full of action in the end. An introspection
into an exaggerated view of our class structure in the US.
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