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The Purge | 2013 | R | - 4.7.5

In the near future the U.S. has instituted one night a year when any violent act will go unpunished. When one family's reinforced home is breached, they must decide what they are willing to do to protect themselves. With Ethan Hawke, Lean Headey, Max Burkholder and Adelaide Kane. Directed by James DeMonaco. [1:25]

SEX/NUDITY 4 - A teen girl sits on her bed and a young man grabs her from behind, pushes her down and they kiss passionately (we see her shirt unbuttoned and exposing her bra and cleavage), he rolls on top of her and she wraps her legs around his (we see her skirt flip up and reveal her bare thighs).
 A woman wears a deeply cut dress that reveals her cleavage in several scenes. A woman's dress flies open at the hem when she falls dead and her bare legs to the upper thigh are seen.
 A teen girl and a young man kiss in her bedroom (she is wearing a school uniform with a short skirt that reveals her bare thighs when the skirt flips up).
 A man and a woman wearing full-face masks kiss. A man kisses another man (whom he has just stabbed) on the forehead.
 A teen girl hides under her bed and a man enters her room looking for her (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details); the man remarks that she is "exquisite" and "save her for me." A pre-teen boy talks about having written a story where a character cuts out his own heart and his older teen sister remarks that "he should have cut off his penis."

VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - A man shoots another man in the head (we see blood spray) and we see the dead man being dragged away. A young man shoots at a man who shoots him in the abdomen (we see the bloody wound) and we later see the young man lying dead on the floor with blood on his wound and hands.
 A man holds a teen girl around the throat with a gun to her head and another man holds a gun on him; they shout and threaten each other until a woman with a gun approaches from behind, they all scuffle and the teen girl hits her head and falls unconscious while the two men fight; one man is shot in the stomach and struck in the head with a vase (we later see the very bloody wound on his abdomen).
 A wounded, bound man struggles to free himself from his bindings and a woman presses a letter opener into the wound in his abdomen twice; the man screams through his gag and thrashes (we see a lot of blood on his abdomen and the woman's hands) and a young teen boy watches in horror and pleads for her to stop. A young teen boy hides in a basement and is found by a man who pulls him out and points a gun at his head; the man is shot from behind several times (blood sprays and spurts and he falls dead). A man shoots another man and he falls back and slides down a wall. A man shoots at a man and a woman and misses but hits furniture and other items, the two men fight, the woman swings an ax at the man and misses, and one man pins the other with a gun across his throat and he hits the man in the head with a pool ball; a man shoots the woman and she falls off a pool table and onto the floor dead (we see blood splatter), one man hits the other man with a pool stick a few times and he yells in pain, and a man hits another man in the back with an ax. A man stabs another man in the stomach with a knife (we hear the crunch), the man falls back to the floor and the other man pulls out the knife (we see the knife covered with blood and it is long and serrated). Two people shoot two other people (we see them in a pool of blood later). A young woman shoots a man several times (blood spurts). A man shoots another man in the chest (blood spurts) and hits another man in the face (we see his bloody nose later) before holding several others at gunpoint.
 A woman hits another woman in the face with a gun butt, and then slams her head into a glass top table (we see a lot of blood and the woman spits more blood and what could be a tooth). Several men and women attack a woman and her two teen children; they tape their hands and feet and threaten them with guns and knives as the mother pleads for the lives of her children. A man and a woman grab another woman and hold her on the floor while one woman tickles her, and then pulls out a machete; another man and woman shoot the woman with the machete in the head (blood splatters) and the man several times (he thrashes and bloody spurts).
 We see several CCTV screens showing numerous acts of violence, from shootings to bludgeoning, stabbing and beatings (we see a few victims with blood on their clothing and wounds and a few with blood pooling around them on the ground) in a few scenes throughout the movie.
 Huge steel doors are pulled off the doors and windows of a house and several people with weapons shoot out the windows and enter the house where armed people wait for them. Several people armed with guns and machetes and wearing full masks approach a house and threaten the occupants with death; the power in the house is then cut. A wounded man runs into a house and appears to be wounded (we see blood on his shirt); another man in the house draws a gun on him. A man with a gun chases another man hiding in his house.
 A man has a large bloody wound on his abdomen. A man appears to be wounded and pleads for someone to help him (he is on the street and all of the houses on the block are locked down). A man is shown with a bloody cut on his cheek. A teen girl has a bloody cut on her forehead. We see several dead bodies with blood pooled around them on the ground.
 A teen girl hides under her bed and a man enters he room looking for her (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details).
 We see people with guns walking a street on a CCTV screen. Heavy steel doors slam shut covering the doors and windows of a house. Loud sirens blare denoting the start of the purge period that will last 12 hours. A man unlocks his chest of guns. We see a man and a woman loading weapons and arming themselves. A man gives his teen son a gun to defend himself.
 A woman is startled by a sound on her roof. A baby doll with burn marks and a partially missing face, cut off at the waist and glued to an R/C car, is shown in a few scenes and it has a glowing red light behind the one remaining eye (it is a remote camera and it startles a woman in one scene). A young man climbs out the window of a teen girl's bedroom.
 We hear reports of violent acts and the success of the year's purge and hundreds of people in a square purging at the same time. A man on a radio call in show says "I'm gonna hunt down my boss" (implying to kill him). People repeat the line "release the beast" in reference to the purge night. A man on a TV show talks about human beings being a violent species. We hear gunshots and maniacal laughter outside a house. We hear reports of a "most successful purge." We hear reports of numerous bodies being discovered and that people dragged other people out of buildings to execute them. A pre-teen boy talks about having written a story where a character cuts out his own heart and his older teen sister remarks that "he should have cut off his penis."

LANGUAGE 5 - About 6 F-words and its derivatives, 1 obscene hand gesture, 1 scatological terms, 3 anatomical terms, 7 mild obscenities, name-calling (stupid, annoying, dirty homeless pig, piece of filth, filthy swine), 1 religious profanities, 10 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - A woman drinks wine in a couple of scenes, and a man drinks wine with dinner. A man smokes a cigarette in a couple of scenes.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Murder and mayhem, catharsis, poverty, crime, economic disaster, entitlement, jealousy, greed, the haves and the have-nots.

MESSAGE - Violence is endemic to human beings.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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