THE PURGE: We Have Met The Enemy...And It Is Us

Rating: 7/10 (10 June 2013)

The premise behind writer/director James DeMonaco's film THE PURGE is indeed a fantastic and, perhaps at first, unlikely one: set in the year 2022, when unemployment nationwide is down to just one percent, and crimes across the board are at an all-time low. But what if the manner of getting it that was to allow a one-night "purge", in which violent behavior was actually sanctioned by the United States government, and largely to rid America of the poor and the indigent? It is a premise that may seem outrageous; but so too was the idea of a surveillance state as depicted in George Orwell's classic 1948 novel "1984"; and what has America become since 9/11 but a surveillance state in real life? Under the right circumstances, it isn't totally out of the realm of possibility that something like THE PURGE might come to pass.
Ethan Hawke portrays a security systems designer whose entire neighborhood, located in the hills above West Los Angeles, owes its very security and safety to his security designs. It becomes especially important during a twelve-hour time frame from 7 PM to 7 AM on March 21st and 22nd, 2022 known as "The Purge", in which violent behavior, including murder, theft, and even rape, will be allowed—and no police or emergency first responders will be on duty. It is a thing that Hawke and his family, and their neighbors, have gotten used to; and they have also become largely callous when it comes to the potential victims of the Purge, namely the poor who don't have the ability to support themselves with any job or pay approaching anywhere close to what Hawke makes. But on this particular Purge Night, one of Hawke's children (Max Burkholder), out of the goodness of his heart and a conscience that the father has apparently lost, lets a wounded black man (Edwin Hodge) enter the premises, which upsets Hawke tremendously. To Hawke, Hodge is exactly the kind of target the Purge people want to kill; and when the leader (Rhys Wakefield) of one such Purge group comes to get Hodge, Hawke, his family, and their home come under siege from that group. Hawke at first advocates handing over Hodge to them (given that the Purge group has already totally crippled what Hawke had once proclaimed a foolproof security system), but his wife (Lena Headey), daughter (Adelaide Kane) and Burkholder, appalled at his descent into cold-blooded survivalist mode, force the issue. In the end, they are forced to endure much physical horror and psychological terror until the morning comesand does it really end there? DeMonaco wrote and directed THE PURGE on a budget of just slightly more than $3 million; and apart from the sometimes shaky and unsteady camera work (a trait that came from the quasi-documentary style of films like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY), every penny of that $3 million budget shows up here. There are a number of things that don't quite work the way they should; and some of the acting, especially by Wakefield as the chief Purge instigator, is overly hammy. In terms of what DeMonaco is basically trying to do with what is certainly a fantastic and crazy premise, however, THE PURGE is effective enough. Some would claim, in a rather ham fisted fashion, that DeMonaco is attacking the behavior of the Far Right in America and its attitudes towards those who have less than they do. But I have to wonder if any of the reviewers making those claims noticed that the upscale rich people in THE PURGE turn against their own in the end. This kind of has a Rod Serling-like twist to it if you really think about it hard enough--"The Monsters Are On Maple Street", anyone?. We have met the enemy, and it's really us.
Besides that aforementioned "Twilight Zone" reference, THE PURGE seems to derive its power and plot from many films: the original ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13; A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (the masks worn by Wakefield and his posse); THE BIRDS; NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD; STRAW DOGS (the original 1971 Sam Peckinpah classic); and even THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND (Peckinpah's last, released in 1983). But these are films that have a kinetic and psychological power that very few other "horror" or "thriller" films of this kind can have without spiraling into hyper-violent absurdity, and they are films that DeMonaco clearly has learned a lot from.
Hawke does a fairly good job of being a somewhat callous capitalist who grossly underrates the impact that the violent behavior of the night of the Purge will have on his family. Headey also does a credible job as his wife, who questions his motivations and his morality when, at first, he decides to hand Hodge over to Wakefield, instead of doing the right thing and fighting for his humanity. In the final analysis, and in terms of its credibility and plausibility, THE PURGE isn't necessarily the best psychological "horror" or "thriller" film that has ever been. But it is effective enough to deliver what it promises for its eighty-five minute running time.