The Purge: Blu Ray Review

The Purge: Blu Ray Review

Rating: R16
Released by Universal Home Ent

In a near future America, for 12 hours on one night a year, Government sanctioned crime is legal. This is The Purge and it's credited with keeping the populace in line and the criminal element in line.

There are rules though - no government can be overthrown and some weapons are outlawed. But otherwise, it's all go in this cathartic criminal cutdown.

Successful security salesman James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) is hunkering down with his family for the night of the Purge, when things start to go awry. His young son Charlie sees a homeless man begging for help on the security screens during their lockdown and lets him in. But that brings the people who were doing the hunting to the door, demanding his release - or they'll come for all of them.

Suddenly, Sandin is facing a difficult choice....

The Purge is a terrific concept for a film - director James DeMonaco does a great job of building up the initial suspense and places plenty of seeds of doubt over what could happen (an angsty teen daughter, upset at her father's meddling in her relationship, jealous neighbours and the fact a man gets into their home) but then fudges the second half.

Having built up some goodwill and some eeriness as well as a great moral dilemma / social comment, The Purge then unfortunately loses it as it lapses into formulaic home invasion, blundering about in the dark, and providing the usual scares and jump-out-of-your-seat moments.  There's also a queasiness that the man being hunted is coloured and the would be killers are white - it's an uncomfortable touch which should have been jettisoned; more morally suspect ideology could have been explored in a less unsubtle way.

Hawke and Lena Headey work well with the story's confines and the initial discussions provoke plenty of internal discussions about what would you do if the same occurred; but by the time the grinning baddie comes crashing through the doors, the film's lost all semblance of a smart thriller and blundered into cliche territory.

Great premise, poor execution - a sequel's planned so who knows if the creators will take this to heart. The Purge proffers some intellectual scares but abandons them in favour of the usual horror tropes.

Extras: Making of

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