2022, and America has been taken over by the New Founding Fathers regime who have instituted an annual one-night event called The Purge. This involves citizens being permitted to commit any crime whatsoever, with the rather spurious justification that the introduction of this has slashed the crime rate by allowing people an outlet for their inner aggression. Ethan Hawke sells security systems to the rich to hide behind for the duration, but of course watching him sitting with his family in his house for the night would not make much of a thriller, and so the violence gets let in when a gang of privileged psychos demands that they release a homeless fugitive they had targeted for summary execution.
There is the seed of a good idea here about the social self-exclusion of the rich and the inherent contempt of swathes of American society towards the poor, but it gets hopelessly swamped by dependence on the violence it purports to condemn, the irritating dimness of the victimised family, the transparent Heath Ledger's Joker-channelling of the gang leader and above all the ludicrous nature of the whole premise. Goodwill generated through attempted condemnation of the brutality of (U.S.) society has dissipated long before the hoary device of the last-gasp rescue by an off-screen shooter is used for the fourth time.
4/10
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