The Purge

 

 

In case there was any doubt, I really love movies and am a frequent movie watcher when I have time. I also tend to enjoy a genre of movies I like to think of as "bad movies." When I see a preview for something that just looks like it could be so bad it's good, that's the type of movie I want to watch. The Purge looked like it would fit the bill. I think I saw the preview for this movie when we went to see The Great Gatsby at the theater, but my lovely girlfriend may correct me on that.

Anyway, the basic premise of the movie is that in a future dystopian America, 2022 to be exact, the US government has organized a 12 hour period once a year where all crime (including murder, theft, rape, embezzlement, jaywalking) is completely legal and no emergency services are available. Why would they do this, you ask? Well, it gets rid of, shall we say, social undesirables, leaving the New USA with an unemployment rate of 1% and a booming economy.

Ignoring the obvious reasons why this could never happen, something I can't help but think about is the movie takes place nine years from now. Ethan Hawke's character and his wife are both in their forties if not older, yet they completely accept that the purge occurs and so does everyone else for that matter. The only mention of people against the purge is that they get killed on a regular basis. That means that within the past few years they have completely adapted to this new way of life and even indulge in it, as Hawke's character sells home security systems for a living and even remarks that while a few years ago they were barely making rent, while now they are looking at buying a boat.

So let's ignore all that. Let's not pick it apart and just accept it for what it is. I'm not going to give away any of the story suffice to say that shit goes horribly awry. Otherwise you'd have a fairly boring movie. So is it a good, bad movie?

It's okay. I'd rate it somewhere in the middle. IMDB is currently rating this at about a 5/10 and I think that rating is a fair one. I really like the premise of this movie and that's why I watched it even though I had heard it wasn't great. But that's never stopped me from watching a movie before.

 

 

Yep.