"Release the beast, boys! Let the killing commence!"

Rating: 5/10 (8 June 2013)

This film has a wicked and interesting premise that initially lured me in: in the near-future, the government allows a single night for everybody to go nuts and commit any crime they desire...including murder. All emergency services are shut down, and the US becomes a massive free-for-all of mayhem, destruction, and bloodshed.
Alas, the film never really shows that much mayhem, destruction, and bloodshed. With its focus solely on a single family trying to survive the night, the film limits itself, and it takes its sweet time getting to the climax, where all the real terror and action takes place. For the most part, the film purposefully moves at a turtle's pace, relying solely on the threat of intruders to maintain any interest. For this movie, however, I would have probably been more interested and more moved if it had greater intensity and relentlessness; as it is, the film came off as being rather dull.
It's the story that disappointed me the most, however. The premise is the stuff that dystopian sci-fi dreams are made of, but The Purge is no A Clockwork Orange, no matter how hard it tries. The movie digs up some interesting sociological and psychological reasoning for its premise, and the implications can be staggering. They can be, that is, but in the film, such themes never materialize into any tangible form.
Nope, at best, the film is a pure home-invasion thriller. It's populated with average characters, some of whom make really stupid decisions for the sake of driving the plot forward. The film tries to boldly assert that the human spirit and moral goodness are things worth fighting and dying for, but thanks to this direction, the characters wind up making even more dumb decisions. By the film's end, I don't think I really cared who lived or who died. The plot is dulled further with far too frequent use of Deus Ex Machina: that is, too many instances where characters are randomly saved by other characters or events. That ultimately brings me to a myriad of lesser nitpicks: the house is apparently so huge that people get lost and pop in and out of the scenes whenever they feel like it; these people should have invested in more firepower; the whole situation seems incredulous; and so on...
As a film, it's pretty standard thriller fare, with jittery camera work throughout the more exciting scenes, along with dark and bland lighting and color schemes. Acting is not bad: Ethan Hawke and Leena Heady provide the most sensible performances, while the kid actors do their best to be plausibly dumb. I think the biggest standouts will be the villains, with Rhys Wakefield as the head bad guy, for they are genuinely creepy. Writing is okay, but more detail, exposition, and better plotting would have worked wonders. This production uses very spartan sets, props, and costumes, and they get the job done. Whatever music the film uses is utterly forgettable.
This film is promising, and the main idea could have been hammered out into something ingenious. As a dystopian sci-fi story, however, the film fails to resonate; it's more at home among other slashers and thrillers, but it's still somewhat mundane. There are far better movies out there in either field.
2.5/5 (Entertainment: Average | Story: Poor | Film: Marginal)