The Purge

Everyone tries hard, but it's impossible to navigate through a premise as stupid as The Purge. In the near-future, America maintains low unemployment and crime rates through an annual, 12-hour period of lawlessness. Wealthy home security designer James (Ethan Hawke) and his family lockdown their Panic Room-esque house for this year's purge, but young son Charlie lets in a bloodied stranger pleading for help. No rational explanation is offered for how 12 hours of free murder every year creates more jobs, nor why there aren't just private police forces stopping the roving kill gangs. The Purge, instead, limits its wack-a-doodle plot to masked home invasion thriller. A smear of class warfare malarky is meant to elevate the material above C-grade horror; unsurprisingly it fails. Like a 13-year-old boy discussing politics, The Purge is an ugly little shit of a film. —Jacob Boon