Welcome to 364 days of chaos!--Some spoilers

Alright, I pretty much guess most people would contend that this movie is trash. But is it good trash? To me, to be honest, the answer is no.

For a movie to work, however wild, it must adhere to its own internal logic. It must work as the situation is displayed. If you are going to create a dystopian society, it has to work all the way around. (It is one reason why I never liked zombie movies. If you accept that people die and can come back, you cannot immediately expect that any creature, zombie or not, can create energy indefinitely when not eating for months and can continue to run around when ripped open and bleeding. It is never explained why people don't hide out and wait a few weeks until these organisms are too weak to run and fight, but no, that never happens. Zombie's last for years, even after they ran out of non-zombies to eat!)

This film portrays what seems to be a rather normal, fully functioning society, with murder and mayhem allowed once a year. There are nice homes, nice items, electronics, normal cars, people work, they evidently love their kids. But they somehow turn off the love for their fellow man once a year. And then go back to normal. It would have worked better if society was totally breaking down in all other respects--but it still would have been lame.

We have had societies become wicked and evil reign for a while, Nazi Germany is the easiest to point to. But those were rather gradual changes, sick as they were, but they didn't switch off and on like a light switch. People don't work that way.

Imagine going to work the day after the purge. "Hi Harry, how did your purge night go?" "Fine Ben, but I did notice your son killed my mentally disturbed, homeless daughter before we had a chance to pick her up and bring her back to us. But never mind that, back to work!" That wouldn't happen.

If you lost a loved one, or someone tried to kill you, you wouldn't wait until the next purge to get your revenge. Everyone would be seeking vengeance all year long. The film simply requires you to suspend too much disbelief to buy into the premise. It's not scary, it's just absurd on every level. Imagine the neighbors who attempted to cash in on the purge at the end, and let's say they killed the kids but not the parents. Would the parents really go back to being casual friends and neighbors the next day? Would anyone, anywhere? If you were a family facing that group of kids as shown in the movie, but survived to the next day, you'd subscribe to the most assuredly burgeoning hit squad industry next day and have every one of the punks delivered to Satan's doorstep--especially if they had managed to kill someone in your family.

In addition to the cop-out of CONSTANTLY, right before one of the killers is going to butcher someone, with ax/shotgun/handgun raised, just at that point of pulling the trigger--BOOM--they get shot by someone out of frame. Over and over again. Lazy writing and lack of ideas. How cool it would have been if the polite guy--in the middle of his dumb speech, right in the middle gets shot. But no. And of course, as long as they were being lazy, that had to throw in what I call the "Crazy Joker from the 2nd Batman Movie". This phenomenon is when you have the leader of some crazy group of thugs just murder one of his own gang, for no real good reason. Logic--why would you be a gang member if the head of the gang occasionally just murders one of his followers? You wouldn't, because at any moment it could be you. And did anyone else in the gang have a friendship with the murdered guy? Evidently not, they just drag the body off. Wouldn't that just wreck all the fun?

My other nit was there was a smattering of anti-Americanism in the mix. I mean, stating once that this was there "American right" to do would have been OK, but it was repeated over and over again. There's an undercurrent implication here that someone with a gun in America really wants to use it to kill someone, and by doing so, they feel better. That is the take away here. Note the only "winner" here is the mom who "wins" but NOT using a gun. That is supposed to make the viewer feel better, but the reality is--and here is the old logic issue again--she let four psychotic/sociopaths go who will likely attempt to kill her and her family again.

Laughably, the really awful blonde neighbor lady almost getting excited and smiling as she is begging to get shot and just "get it over with".

Oh please.

It is sad to see Ethan Hawke go from "Training Day" to this dreck. There is a scene after he first talks with the "polite" group murder leader. He closes the inside door behind him, the camera takes a rather clumsy track towards his face, and you see a pained look on Hawkes face--not one really matching the situation, but almost pained to be in this film. Watch it sometime and see if you agree!