Charlie Sandin in 'The Purge': Annoying Character or Plot Necessity?

Max Burkholder Plays Annoying Character

(Warning: Spoiler Alerts)

The Purge was a movie that boasted a very strong premise. It revolved around the idea that there would be one day every year where America would be lawless, and people could commit any crime without punishment, a period of impunity. It had created an idyllic society with low crime rates and

unemployment, namely because all violence took place during that one day (12 hours to be exact if I’m correct). Some may call it ludicrous but I found it extremely interesting to see how such a scenario would play out.

As you know if you have watched the movie, it focuses on the Sandin family where the father makes a living selling security systems to protect people during the infamous purge (that 12 hour period where anything goes). Ironically, the family that sells the systems becomes victims on this one given night, thanks to the youngest of the family, Charlie Sandin, played by Max Burkholder. 

The boy can’t come to terms with the Purge, believing it to be immoral (which it is), despite all the good it has done for America (in the movie’s context). All goes awry when he lets in a man being chased by a group of criminals during the Purge, a stupid mistake given that those criminals later hand out an ultimatum to the family, hand over the man or die along with him. This is made difficult when the victim (man being chased) hides in the house.

From this very first action, I found Charlie Sandin very annoying and he made this movie experience unpleasant at times. Everything annoyed me, his voice, his face, everything. He was irksome. His stupidity threw his family in harm’s way. I thought about letting it ago, opting to pass it off as a mistake, but no, his foolishness persisted. When his father was trying to find the man he let into the house, Charlie used his remote control toy to help the man being chased hide, foiling his father’s attempts to help protect the entire family. I wanted to slap him across the face until he cried.

While I was watching the movie I knew that he’d get his father killed, and he eventually did. I was always rooting for the father played by Ethan Hawke due to his pragmatism, but this menace of a kid kept interfering with everything. At one point in the film, Hawke’s character manages to get hold of the man in the house, but before he hands the victim over to the sadists outside, little Charlie jumps in and whines, persuading Daddy to instead fight off an army of masked psychopaths who were waiting outside. 

I’m not sure if I hate the character of Charlie Sandin or the actor Max Burkholder. In the end though, I assigned the blame to the character, as the actor was merely doing his job. Charlie was intended to act as the moral compass of the movie, something like the last shred of humanity left in America, but to me, he merely came off as an irritant. 

But later, I realized that he’s a necessary irritant. These elements are there in most movies, especially those in horror and thriller flicks. Think about the girl who opens the door when it rings very late at night, or the man drawn to investigate a dark room after hearing a creepy noise. They’re all dense, but finally essential components of the film’s plot. 

Charlie falls into this category because his senseless actions helped make the plot. If he hadn’t let the chased man into the house, we’d have no hide and seek game in the house with Ethan Hawke. We wouldn’t even have a showdown between Ethan Hawke and the Manson family lookalikes, because it was Charlie (and his mother) that persuaded his father to take down a group of villains instead of surrendering the man who got into their house.

Without Charlie, there would be no story to The Purge. The Sandin family would have had a quite night in during the Purge, and no one would have been killed. There would be no entertainment. This is why I must say that characters like Charlie, the annoying or stupid ones, are sometimes requirements to a film’s plot. They propel a movie forward by creating unique situations with excitement and tension. They also stir up an assortment of feelings, from simple frustration to overflowing anger. A movie needs to be able to that. It needs to make the audience experience various emotions.  I think a movie is successful if it evokes some form of feeling, besides boredom (and a few other things I suppose) as long as the character’s actions can be justified. Charlie did everything he did on the grounds of moral righteousness, knowing that he couldn’t let an innocent man die on the streets, so he let him in. He’s a boy in the film, so his actions are justified, but he didn’t see the bigger picture and the consequences it would have on his family. That pissed me off. But he’s a child, and responsible for more than half the story. 

The bottom line is that we need characters like Charlie in the movies now, and we’ll need them in the future as well. When it comes to most thriller and horror films, this is especially true. In some movies we shout at the screen, telling a character not to go into the dark room because we know the killer is there, but the character goes in any way. The actor probably dies, but we get a decent scene in terms of blood and gore. Charlie is one of these characters. We don’t want him to do something but he does it anyway. He paves the way for entertaining material later on. As much as we may not like him, we need him. Here’s to all the characters like Charlie out there.