The Purge

Set in 2022, a time when unemployment is at one percent and the poverty rate below five percent, the provocative, satirical premise of this sci-fi horror tale finds the U.S. government legalizing all crime—including homicide—for one 12-hour period each year in order to serve as a kind of national catharsis for society's knife-wielding, gun-toting maniacs, allowing them to commit acts of violence with no fear of retribution. So from 7 p.m. on March 21 to 7 a.m. on March 22, anything goes: police calls are not answered, and no emergency services are provided. Home security systems salesman James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) has installed top-of-the-line surveillance equipment at his luxurious McMansion within a gated community. While he and his wife, Mary (Lena Headey), are prepared for the coming lockdown—hunkering in behind steel shutters to watch the mayhem on TV—the family is thrown into chaos, particularly teens Charlie (Max Burkholder) and Zoey (Adelaide Kane), after James accidentally kills Zoey's boyfriend (mistaking him for an intruder). Add to that the threat posed by a homeless black man (Edwin Hodge)—an injured drifter seeking sanctuary—whom Charlie has allowed into the house. When an angry mob comes looking for the man, demanding his release, the entire family is threatened. Writer-director James DeMonaco employs the same scary, dystopian, class-warfare concept as The Hunger Games but the potential is lost when The Purge ultimately devolves into an improbable, idiotically gory home-invasion thriller. Not a necessary purchase. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include a “Surviving the Night” making-of featurette (9 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release are bonus DVD, digital, and UltraViolet copies of the film. Bottom line: an unremarkable extras package for an unremarkable horror flick.] (S. Granger)