Don't binge on 'Purge'

ALL THAT'S missing from the set-up to "The Purge" is the Rod Serling intro.

This is a very "Twilight Zone"-y horror movie of ideas (plus some 2013 violence) set in a near-future America wherein a willing populace trades 364 docile, crime-free days for one day of anything-goes mayhem - the so-called Purge, during which all crime is legal.

Business is good, as you might guess for enterprising suburbanite James (Ethan Hawke), who sells purportedly impregnable security systems to other McMansion dwellers. When the big night arrives, James and his clients close their steel doors and open a nice bottle of smug.

The entire movie takes place within James' locked-down home on one of these hyper-inflated mischief nights. His compassionate son takes in a fugitive fleeing a murderous mob, and the pursuers set upon the house, demanding the release of their quarry, or else.

That's an efficient little moral dilemma, and "The Purge" could have simply left things at that. But the movie's pretensions get the better of it - the fugitive is an African American veteran, the hostile mob look (and act) like members of Kevin Bacon's "Animal House" fraternity. The snotty leader (Rhys Wakefield) wears a blue blazer, club tie, and appeals to James in the basis of their shared privilege, and a shared belief in the expendability of the lower classes.

That's laying it on a bit thick.

On the other hand, just when you think you've got the "The Purge" classified, it morphs - the movie's barbecue-gone-bananas critique of gated communities contained in the third act feels better judged, and is worth a few grisly laughs.

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