Why Do I Remember the Trailer, not the Film?

Rating: 2/10 (23 November 2014)

Now listen... this review is going to sound a bit preachy, but there's a reason why The Purge made more than 10 TIMES its budget in the opening weekend only last year.
With all of my reviews, I always tie in some sort of reality check as a possible inspiration for the film. The Purge comes a year after Sandy Hook and the Aurora Theater Shooting; this all coupled with a public still reeling from the Virginia Tech Massacre. I remember it like it was yesterday when a dejected Barrack Obama addressed the people on national television on December 14, 2012, when he used the Sandy Hook shooting as a way to infringe on our rights to bear arms.
While many viewed The Purge as a fun movie, there was actually an agenda behind it and it helped feed a movement that ultimately affected your rights as an American.
The advertising, the premise, and the political tension at the time is what ignited it's success and also what added to the chaos amidst a politically engaged America looking to once again rehash the issue of gun control.
For one night all crimes are legal and as a result all crime throughout the year is decreased; the purge. James Sandin, played by Ethan Hawke (Training Day, gun-control advocate), is a businessman that sells security systems based on the purge event. Hawke's performance was very Mark Wahlberg (another gun control advocate); homage to a comrade or past his prime? Anyway...
Of course everything goes awry when the obligatory child actor in a horror movie, in this one his name is Charlie "can't sit in the corner and shut up" Sandin (Max Burkholder), jeopardizes his family's sanctity when he disarms the security system and saves a stranger (who literally has no name, but is played by actor Edwin Hodge) from being purged.
The mob chasing him organizes in the front yard, and the leader who calls himself "Henry" (Tony Oller) amusingly threatens and demands they release the stranger or they will "release the beast." No more threatening words have ever been uttered by any man in history! After the cliché opening credits which is a montage of people causally shooting each other set to uplifting music, the movie quickly decomposes before your very eyes.
What the people remember about this movie is the premise and the shock advertising, which came at a time when America was vulnerable. What The Purge really is, is a forgettable political attack on gun rights and the activists who protect them (the National Rifle Association). If its anything at all, its at the very least terrible. In my opinion it was simply spun together to exasperate a real situation. Could've been so much better, but they just had to be political with a terrible movie...