The Purge

James DeMonaco has penned a few scripts over the last few years and he also picks up the screenplay credit here as well as picking up the megaphone for the first time. This isn’t a great debut, but I always give first timers the benefit of the doubt and DeMonaco delivers quite a lot from a small budget. The problem the film has is that from its nice central premise it doesn’t know where to go and ends up a mixture of genres with it eventually just tailing off into plain silliness. Set in 2022, the United States has become a nation with low crime rates due to the introduction of an annual purge during which all citizens have free reign to commit any crimes they want without reprisal. Ethan Hawke stars as a rich salesman who has made a living from selling home security systems who suddenly finds his own house under attack during the purge when (irony ahoy!) his own defence set up reveals itself to be not as solid as he thought. As a social allegory it’s as subtle as a knife in the ribs (plenty of that in this film by the way), but DeMonaco’s screenplay doesn’t even attempt to address this further and the film turns into a standard home invasion thriller. However there is a decent moral dilemma plot wise thrown into the mix at the halfway point, but the increasing levels of violence as the film goes on just highlights the well of ideas running dry. Rating: 5/10.