The Purge

For twelve hours everything is legal. Arson, theft, rape, murder. All of it is legal for twelve hours and there are absolutely no consequences. You can either participate or you can set out some blue flowers outside to show that you support the purge but choose not to participate.

The Purge focuses on the Sandin family who have decided to shelter themselves away for the purge as they seem to do every year. Mr. Sandin (Ethan Hawke) sells security systems to those who wish to protect themselves from the purge.

In the events of the night while Mr. Sandin and his wife (Lena Headey) shelter themselves away with their children, their daughter, Zoe, has managed to sneak in her older boyfriend, Henry, who is much too old for her but insists he wants to talk to Mr. Sandin to convince him that it's okay.

Meanwhile, a bloodied stranger is roaming in their front yead shouting for help, and their son, Charlie, lets him in. Eventually those the bloodied stranger was running from show up and offer the Sandins an ultimatium: return to them the bloodied stranger so that he may die as he should, or they can all die.

Which would you choose?

The concept of this movie is very nice but there wasn't enough time to develop it. It brings up so many questions that are left unanswered, such as why blue flowers? What do they signify? Why is blue flowers that represent support for the purge? Who are the founding fathers that brought amongst this purge?

There's never enough time to really root for anyone. Zoe, who is just focused on her older boyfriend, is the typical whiny brat of a teenager who you'd just like to slap. Charlie is desperate for attention. Mr. Sandin is a bit too cheerful and Mrs. Sandin just seems awkard and uncomfortable. There's never enough time to grow any sort of attachment to any of the characters.

This wasn't suspenseful enough to me to be a true thriller and it seemed to start out so slow and then happen much too quickly for me to really get into it. The 'twist' at the end wasn't much of a twist in fact it's kind of a telling twist that if you actually paid attention you would've called out right at the beginning.

Then there is the last standing question: the Sandins let their would be murderers go at the end - so what will happen next purge?