The Purge **

Set in the near future, the ‘reborn’ United States Government have implemented an annual ‘Purge Night’. In order to control crime and unemployment rates, for one day, between 7pm and 7am, anyone can commit the most heinous crimes without facing any of the consequences. The film centres on Ethan Hawke’s character, a businessman, who has made his family wealthy by selling a security lockdown system to keep citizens safe during the purge – however on this ‘purge night’ he and his family are put in danger.

The film explores ideas pertaining to the American economy, the division of wealth and other themes such as repressed societal aggression leading to more intense, explosive violence. The Purge intends to consider the classlessness of violence as the opulent upper-class are portrayed as being just as bloodthirsty, and even more so, than the individuals revolting from outside their steel fortresses. However, although film is sometimes reminiscent of exploitation revenge-horrors like The Last House on the Left, Michael Haneke’s consummately uncomfortable Funny Games and even David Fincher’s Panic Room, writer/director James DeMonaco offers little in the way of substantial tension. The acting is largely inert, the narrative lacks a freshness of innovation – despite the fact that it facilitates the ideas proficiently – and the bloodshed consists of ineffectual splatter. The Purge has a compelling premise and yet proceeds to do nothing particularly interesting with it.