"To protect your family, first reason with them"

Title: The Purge
Year: 2013
Genre: Horror, C. Fiction. Thriller
Director: James DeMonaco
Writer: James DeMonaco
Runtime: 85min
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Max Burkholder, Adelaide Kane, Edwin Hodge, Rhys Wakefield, Tony Oller
Produc.: Blumhouse Productions, Platinum Dunes, Universal Internation Pictures (UI), Universal Pictures, Why Not Productions
Budget: $3 million aprox.

The year is 2022 and society has achieved something once thought impossible: to eradicate, almost completely, unemployment and violence. In The Purge, unemployment is actually not explained, while violence is the trigger for the entire plot. 

James DeMonaco imagines what a near future would be like, where the political regime (the "New Founding Fathers of America”) had the population living in peace, with isolated exceptions. Also as part of this, it has been implemented the "annual purge". Nocturnal event, that happens once a year, so that anyone who wants it, can commit their crimes freely. 

As far as I am concerned, I must congratulate the director for trying to be original, although I do not think anyone would settle for one night, to commit a crime. 

James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) is, in this movie, a father who sells security systems. The same one he has placed and now he activates, to protect his family during the purge. 

What James does not know though, is that between the foolish reasoning of his son Charlie (Max Burkholder) , and the mistaken relationships of his daughter Zoe (Adelaide Kane ), the night is about to become very chaotic. 

Starting with the boy, once the doors and windows have been blocked, and that the purge has begun, he disables the security so that a black man (Edwin Hodge) who was asking for help can come in. Based on this, I can only say that Charlie lacks of the sense of survival, for not considering the risk he was exposing his own people too. His father reactivates the system, but when they are no longer alone. 

If what DeMonaco wanted was to get the Sandin into trouble, Charlie´s action in good faith was not the answer. Better to have invented a power failure, to give the stranger a chance to get in by his own means. 

Adding more problems, Zoe has a boyfriend (Tony Oller) that goes out the window when they hear James arrive, but to reappear, armed and vengeful, with his girlfriend´s father in mind. If only he was as good shooter as his objective, perhaps he would have fared better. 

Until here, what we have is a James with complicated kids, and to whom yet, awaits another surprise. 

With the security working, one dead body, a disturbed teenager and a visitor, then appears a group of masked people in front of the house. Dangerously equipped, they express their intentions through their leader (Rhys Wakefield), who speaks from a surveillance camera. He grants the Sandin a two-hour deadline, for there man to be delivered to them. After that period, if nothing has happened they will be forced to kill them all. 

James is now aware that this has gotten out of hand. However, he also keeps in mind that it can still be fixed. 

Nevertheless, the logic in DeMonaco´s characters seems like taken straight out from a world upside down, when Charlie shows the intruder where to hide from his own parents. Or the child has got understanding issues, or he has not yet realized that the thing goes this way: or he dies, or everyone dies. 

When the Sandin finally capture the stranger and tie him up to a chair, here it is clear that Mary Sandin (Lena Headey) is not much more clever than her own son. Why, if not, she would have suddenly decided not to obey the outsiders? That, that it is not humane?, she thinks. But, what about her family´s safety? Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, this Mary, I would say. 

Definitely, DeMonaco uses not very lucid characters, to carry the argument forward. And, in what could end, so much stupidity? In that the group, breaks into the house, given a, not so solid, security system. Then comes the confrontation, with blows, smashing and dead masked men, before the neighbors arrive, to also take advantage of the purge. 

The Purge ends up being about a family of such mentally retarded, that nothing of what happens to them, surprises.

My rating 3/10

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