The Purge

In 2022 America, the “New Founding Fathers” have decreed 12 hours every year when no crime will be punished, including murder. When the time comes, the well-off either hunker down behind their security systems or form hunting parties to stalk and exterminate the homeless and other social undesirables. This night, a suburban couple (Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey) and their two kids see things go horribly wrong. Writer-director James DeMonaco's cockamamie premise tries to lend things an aura of wry social satire, but it's just gaudy lipstick on an old whore; the movie is nothing more than a standard home-invasion slasher flick, and a lousy one at that. DeMonaco poses and answers an ironic question: Does the Purge really “make America a better place”? But he raises a more pertinent one: Do movies like this?