Yeah, this trailer would not have been enough to get me to watch The Purge. For what it's worth, the movie itself is better than this, especially the first hour or so. Unfortunately, it does little to change that this movie's premise is fundamentally broken. Even if we accept that people will just start murdering each other en masse if only murder were legal (which I'm not sure I do), the financial implications of such a policy for a society are hard to enumerate. America loses significant money when people call in sick for work because of the flu, for God's sake.
But it's the movie any good if you just stop thinking and enjoy the spectacle?
James and Mary Sandin live in an obviously affluent gated community with their two American family sitcom stereotype children. They're preparing for "The Purge", a period of twelve hours when all crimes (including murder) become legal in the United States. It's unclear how, but this "Purge" has somehow reduced America's crime rate to near-nonexistent levels, and the unemployment rate to less than one percent. James Sandin makes a living by selling state-of-the-art home security systems, for protection during the Purger, presumably. When else would they be needed in a society with reportedly no crime?
I like Lena Heady since The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Ethan Hawke since Gattaca. They do a good job here, for the most part, though I fear that Heady is mostly wasted throughout. Or perhaps I'm not giving her enough credit, or typecasting her as the standard badass lady of ever film. Here, she plays the privilege housewife of an American gated community, so why would she had any moments of thrill-inducing BAMF-ness? Most privilege housewives in gates communities would probably just cry and beg if a mask-wearing pyscho with a machete got on top of them and started tickling them.
There's a truly mind-numbing subplot with their teen daughter's eighteen-year-old boyfriend that had one moment of suspense that hinges on another character's introduction altogether. The boyfriend was the lone stain in an otherwise excellent first hour. He could have been cut without changing the movie at all. Just have the teen daughter yell about her rights or something, and have her storm off during family dinner, and the same plot could have been accomplished without the boyfriend.
The couple's younger son, Charlie, starts out as a bit of the cliched "weird sitcom son", but he turns out to be the audience surrogate. He's so "young and sensitive" that the he tries to help the homeless man in the trailer, which is what sets off the movie's "plot". Max Burkholder, the young actor who plays him, does an excellent job. Or maybe I'm just a softie who doesn't like to see a cute young child in danger. Either way, he was a surprising highlight.
Not that having a couple of realistic characters saves the second half of this movie from being a chore. The Purge clearly wants to deliver some scathing social commentary, but the set up is too absurd. I can't be asked to see the Sandins as sympathetic, and then watch them gut a homeless man in their living room because he won't cooperate and go to his death at the hands of trust fund babies wearing silly masks. Since it seems that Purger night was conceived during James and Mary's lifetime, and they both remember a time when murder was immoral as well as illegal, I can't even handwave their actions as the results of being raised in a different culture.
Speaking of the trust fund babies in silly masks, Rhys Wakefield does the very best he can with a villain who's only credited as the "Polite Leader". I'm just going to drop the clip where he introduces himself right here:
So, he's a little over-the-top. This is the Republican everyone fears, probably even the rank-and-file Republicans voting for Donald Trump. He sees success - financial success - as a synonym for moral superiority and virtue, to the point where he thinks the homeless exists only so he can gorge his primitive urges on Purge night. This is the kid who stole a truck, killed a bunch of people, then got off on the "affluenza" defense. I give the actor credit. It's like he took a shower in slime before delivering his lines.
While I like the actor for clearly having fun with the whole thing, I can't let the movie off the hook for going with such an easy villain. Who would like this guy? He's such a strawman that I bet an actual scarecrow would be afraid to be seen with him.
The third act of the film involves some forgettable drama with the Sandin's neighbors, who appear after the defense system at their home goes down. At first, it seems like they plan to rescue the Sandin's, but absolutely no one is surprised when they turn their weapons on Mary and the children. Or at least, I wasn't. The Sandins are set up as reluctant participants in the Purge ritual, and the neighbors made pointed comments about how they were jealous because the Sandins had more money than most people on the block because they all bought those security systems James sells. Whatever.
You know the criticism that you can't make a movie about criticizing war because, inevitably, the film makers will add in at least one scene showing how cool war is? This is the social science version of that film. It clearly wants the audience to think that The Purge is immoral (what a great hurdle there), but it can't resist including an orgy of cool, heart-thumping violence in its second and third acts. There are pretty girls in white dresses wielding machetes, and dudes swinging axes around. There are assault rifles and machine guns! Fun! It's like a videogame.
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