Review: The Purge (15)

The Purge suggests that for one night every year, citizens can take up knives and guns to kill anyone they choose without legal reprisals. 
By allowing violence to spill on to the streets in such barbaric fashion, everyone can release their anger, allowing peace to reign for the remaining 364 days of the year.

It’s a neat premise and writer-director James DeMonaco cranks up tension with sadistic glee in his impressively lean second feature, which reunites him with leading man Ethan Hawke.

Security salesman James Sandin (Hawke) returns home to his luxurious gated community and his wife 
Mary (Lena Headey) and children Zoey (Adelaide 
Kane) and Charlie (Max Burkholder).

It’s Purge night and at 7pm a siren will sound that grants anyone immunity from prosecution for killing for the next 12 hours.

As the deadline approaches, the Sandins activate their state-of-the-art defence system and relax for the evening, staring at CCTV cameras positioned around the area.

The calm is shattered when teenager Charlie raises the shutters to allow a homeless man (Edwin Hodge) to escape from a heavily armed mob.

That act of kindness has terrifying consequences when one member of the rabble makes clear that they will break into the house and kill the Sandins unless the homeless man is delivered to them...