Original, Intriguing Concept Gets Lost With Terrible Writing and Directing

Rating: 5/10 (3 December 2013)

The Purge is an interesting movie concept with poor direction. It was not a bad movie. It just was not very good. The idea of this American government implementing a system to let it's citizens purge themselves by dropping all laws for 12 hours once a year... is interesting. But then the movie gets started.
The concept had my attention through the whole movie. It started off pretty well and it makes one think during the whole film that everything they are doing they entire time is legal. Intriguing. Then it just kinda went South about 30 or 40 minutes into it. There were so many times I said to myself, "That would just never happen," or "Why didn't they just..." It was so often that it took the fun out of the movie.
For example: The concept. The news flashes across the TV that this purge helps people to release their inner desire to break the law, so they don't do it any more for the rest of the year and crime is down drastically. Really? Criminals are still criminals. They have criminal minds and don't live outside the concept of not committing crimes. They would not 'be good' because they are allowed to be bad once a year.
Saving the homeless man: If the dad was indeed afraid of their family's lives, he would not change his mind and start fighting and risk their lives. He would have thrown that guy out much earlier
The neighbors all turning bad: People don't just start killing because the opportunity arises. Lots of people are good people even if they are allowed to be bad. They neighbors storm the house in what looks like a rescue, but then are actually there to kill the family themselves just because their front door and security system were torn down. Right.
Why wouldn't a rich man fly his family out of the country for a few days? It would be much safer and cheaper than staying.
Why didn't the movie show you what was going on at all anywhere else? The whole country is purging and the whole movie takes place in one house. Lots of missed opportunities there.
The other problem is the movie lacks reason. There is too much you have to 'just go with.' There was no real reason for anybody to do anything in the movie. There was no reason for the boyfriend to shoot the dad, no reason the gang could not find a different person to kill, no reason the dad should not have given the homeless guy back, no reason the teenage daughter stayed in a sexy Catholic school girl costume the whole movie, no reason the neighbors should hate this family and started killing, no reason for the creepy masks, etc, etc.
What started out as a decent idea turned out to be a basic home invasion thriller. It just didn't have decent writing. The story set up was bad; half the dialog was cheesy or forced; the home-invasion part was something we had seen before. If you want to see good home invasion movies, try Straw Dogs, Your Next, The Strangers or Funny Games. The Purge was not as good as any of those.
Bottom line: What could have been great was not executed well at all. There were far too many missed opportunities this idea could have gone with. It's adequate if you have time to kill but not great if you are looking for quality.