This movie works well for what it is, which is basically an action/horror/thriller story with a gimmick that the movie never fully explores. One of the best things about this movie is the run time which comes in just under an hour and half, so no matter what you might think of the movie, when you get done watching it, the investment of time in the movie isn't that large of an amount.
The gimmick? One day a year our county shuts down all law enforcement, fire departments, and emergency services and allows any form of murder and killing for a 12 hour period with no consequences. This is called the Purge. It's a great gem of an idea but like I said before it's never fully explored as the movie just dives straight into the standard action/horror/thriller genre instead of really diving into the beautiful idea of the Purge and how it would affect people on a sociological and cultural level, which I think would have a been rather fascinating.
Another good thing about this movie is that it's very a slick and stylishly polished production that makes everything which happens on screen easy to look at. The pacing of the whole movie moves fast with never an dull moment and never a moment wasted. A large part of this can be credited to the director James DeMonanco who keeps everything moving along with a pace afforded to this kind of film.
But for me it was Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey who really helped to make this movie more than sum of its parts. They fully bought into the story and really helped to make the actions scenes flourish. They infused their characters with more personality by just how they invested into them and helped to me care about them. It was them that helped me to buy into this movie.
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