Great concept, ruined by terrible script, massive plot holes and the wrong director!

Rating: 3/10 (27 June 2013)

I was excited for this film's release, the concept intrigued me and it did sound promising. Unfortunately a absolutely horrendous script writing ruined this film before it even began!
The Purge, a 12 hour period in which anything is legal and all emergency services are suspended, begins towards the start of the film. Middle class family the Sandins settle down for the night, behind their 'state of the art' security. They're safely wasting the 12 hours away, until son Charlie decides to offer refuge to a homeless victim of the Purge (plot hole number one, why on earth would you entrust the code of your security system to your creepy child?). Soon enough a gang appear politely demanding the Sandins release the homeless man as he is their target for the purge, inexplicably cutting the power to the Sandins home (why cut the power? How on earth are they supposed to find someone in the dark?). Of course you can guess the rest, lots of torches, gun shots and just for the sake of it a pointless plot twist.
Characters are unbelievably one dimensional, we have the stereotypical middle class family. Hardworking dad, James Sandin (Ethan Hawke), his perfect wife, Mary (Lena Headey), rebellious Catholic school girl daughter, Zoe (Adelaide Kane) and some creepy, Blanket Jackson-esque son, Charlie (Max Burkholder). Don't expect to care about any of these characters in anyway shape or form, in fact in the case of Charlie you will probably find yourself actually wanting the antagonists to kill him! There is absolutely NO character development and none of these characters have any redeeming qualities. Hawke isn't usually a bad actor but is terrible in this, he looks bored and fed up throughout. Headey has been given such a flat character I honestly couldn't even rate if she managed a decent job. Rhys Wakefield puts in the best performance as a the creepy leader of the gang though his dialogue is badly written.
Unlikable characters (I mean seriously, I don't think I cared from start to finish who died), bad dialogue, full of MASSIVE plot holes that are impossible to overlook, no suspense, no scares and repeatedly using the same cheap tricks (oh look, yet again another off-screen character is saving the day). I wouldn't recommend this film unless you intend to watch it as a satire because really unless you're going to laugh at how much of a failure the characters and plot are it's probably going to be a waste of your time.