5. The Premise (The Purge)
When I first heard about it, I thought the premise of The Purge was quite clever, with a one night-a-year legal window for crime containing the horrors of society into a manageable amount of negativity. But then I thought about it again. My biggest problem is that so many people will die that night. Does that fact that murder is technically legal make the loss of life okay? It wont to the deads friends and families, certainly. Sure, it might be to keep the population under control but it is definitely not a humane way of doing so. Equally, gangs could still spend an entire year building up to The Purge, even harassing their chosen victims to some extent. In no world could this ever be okay. My other, smaller, issues are: why would the gangs have to wear masks if crime is legal? Surely it doesnt matter if anyone sees their faces: even if they see people who recognise them, theres nothing they can do about it in the morning. It was clearly just so there was a creepy mask in the publicity. And the kid who lets down the family houses security measures for a stranger is just an idiot. Does he have no concept of what happens on that night and its potential consequences for his family? Presumably the film takes place in an alternate universe where everyones taken a stupid pill.