Arts & Entertainment

What are the Critics Saying About 'The Purge'?

This horror film starring Ethan Hawke is playing this weekend.

Ethan Hawke, who just starred on the big screen with Julia Delpy in Before Midnight, tackles the horror genre in The Purge.

Film reviewers across the country are split on this horror film set in the not-so-distant future. See our Storify here.

The Purge is playing at Middletown's Metro Movies 12. See here for showtimes.

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The premise, courtesy of the film's official website:

If on one night every year, you could commit any crime without facing consequences, what would you do?  In The Purge, a speculative thriller that follows one family over the course of a single night, four people will be tested to see how far they will go to protect themselves when the vicious outside world breaks into their home.

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In an America wracked by crime and overcrowded prisons, the government has sanctioned an annual 12-hour period in which any and all criminal activity—including murder—becomes legal.  

The police can’t be called. Hospitals suspend help. It’s one night when the citizenry regulates itself without thought of punishment. On this night plagued by violence and an epidemic of crime, one family wrestles with the decision of who they will become when a stranger comes knocking.

When an intruder breaks into James Sandin’s (Ethan Hawke) gated community during the yearly lockdown, he begins a sequence of events that threatens to tear a family apart. Now, it is up to James, his wife, Mary (Lena Headey), and their kids to make it through the night without turning into the monsters from whom they hide.

"The Purge" is rated R for strong disturbing violence and some language. The movie runs 130 minutes.


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