The Purge

In the backroom of my friend's house, there hangs a bent golf club.  Passing by, most people think it means that he's just a bad golfer.  Most would never guess that he bent it busting in someone's windshield.  One night, some punks were trying to steal his neighbor's grill.  Surprisingly, he ran out and foiled the robbery with the help of his trusty golf club.  My friend is even more mild-mannered than me, and that bent golf club hangs as a reminder that even the most non-violent person has a breaking point.

In the home-invasion film, ordinary people find out where those breaking points lie.  In Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring, a devout Christian father finds there is violence in his heart when a group of travelling outlaws comes calling.  In the film's remake, Last House on the Left, two "normal" parents use chainsaws and baseball bats to break bone, crack skulls, and exact revenge on three misanthropes.  In The Strangers, a loving young couple fight for their lives when a group of masked killers terrorize them at random.  And, in James DeMonaco's The Purge, a wealthy family must protect their home and fight for their hold on that spot in the coveted 1%.

I'm sure The Purge looks amazing on paper.  What a great idea for a film.  In the near future, the government sanctions an annual 12-hour killing spree.  Supposedly, this allows citizens to "purge" their pent up aggression and hatred in one violent night.  It feels like John Carpenter could have written this movie.  It has the "what-if" near future setting of Escape from New York and the invasion film narrative of Assault on Precinct 13.  Unfortunately, John Carpenter did not write this movie.  If he had, maybe this film wouldn't be so preachy, boring, and ineffective.

While James DeMonaco proves to be a simple and functional director, he just doesn't have the chops for a film like this.  Some of the scenes are tightly directed and the suspense is palpable, but the remainder of the film seems to be a rehash of old genre gimmicks and cheap scares.  A character walks across the foreground, revealing a killer standing right behind.  Someone hears a sound.  He turns.  He turns back and the killer is there.  It's not scary in the least.  So many of the scares and plot twists are telegraphed from the first scene.  In the beginning of the film, DeMonaco draws special attention to aspects of the house and certain props.  Of course, all of these previewed images come into play in the climax of the film.  Chekov would be proud.  Still, DeMonaco is too obvious in his exposition.  Leave some mystery for us.

The acting is not too laughable, but there isn't much to write home about.  Ethan Hawke is as serious as ever, and his teeth are as crooked as ever. My Dad has an unexplained dislike for Hawke.  Every time he shows up in a movie, my Dad says, "How does this guy keep getting work? He's really weird looking."  Hey, we can't all have perfect teeth, Dad.  Still, Hawke plays the caring yet alienating patriarch well.  Lena Headey is solid as the strong mother and shows off her action training from The Cave and 300.  The kids are fine in their generic roles.  The real highlight is the film's villain, Rhys Wakefield.  The actor has great fun as a sociopathic prep school student. The cadence of his dialogue is strange and off-putting.  He smiles through the whole performance, but you can see the menace underneath it all.

The film's main problem is its message.  Well, its main problem is that it tries to have a message.  At one point, the film attempts to show how violence is not the answer.  Hawke and Headey show that they are above all this killing. You can't put someone out on the street to die, even if it means the death of your family.  So, Mr. DeMonaco, violence is bad right?  Wrong.  In the latter part of the film, Hawke and Headey turn into complete badasses.  They don't just break windshields with golf clubs.  They gun down the invaders with great gusto, blood flying everywhere.  They use axes and knives in disgusting ways.  While Hawke looks sad at the sight of a female corpse, it is momentary and silly. The "message" is uneven, maybe nonexistent.  DeMonaco doesn't know what he's trying to say.

It's a shame, because most home invasion films have some interesting views on revenge and violence.  Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs is disturbing as it questions the evil that hides inside the human psyche.  In Bergman's The Virgin Spring, Max Van Sydow attempts to wash the blood off his revenge-soaked hands.  He screams at God, asking how his daughter was allowed to die.  Powerful stuff.  Definitely better than watching Ethan Hawke stumble around looking for an orthodontist.  Can't he afford Invisalign?  In Funny Games, Michael Haneke self-reflexively critiques the violence in media and society.  All of these films leave me feeling uncomfortable, and that is a good thing.  When violence is close to "home" maybe it shouldn't be so fun.

And this film was definitely fun for the audience.  I saw The Purge in a crowded auditorium where the people were cheering and clapping with each gruesome kill.  Watching films like Grindhouse or Dawn of the Dead, I'm the first to join in screaming and laughing.  However, in a film attempting social critique, this is troubling.  Or, perhaps this is a healthy way for us to experience horror and mayhem in a controlled, safe environment.  Maybe we do need to let it out, and horror films allow that.  Maybe films like The Purge allow audiences to purge themselves.