Studio: Universal/Blumhouse
Director: Everardo Valerio Gout
Writer: James DeMonaco
Producer: Jason Blum, Michael Bay, Andrew Form, Brad Fuller, Sebastien K. Lemercier, James DeMonaco
Stars: Ana de la Reguera, Tenoch Huerta, Cassidy Freeman, Leven Rambin, Alejandro Edda, Zahn McClarnon, Veronica Falcon, Will Brittain, Sammi Rotibi, Josh Lucas, Will Patton
Review Score:
Summary:
Texas ranchers and Mexican immigrants make an uneasy alliance to battle their way to the border when anarchists declare the Purge will never end in America.
Review:
At the time, I doubt anyone thought they were giving birth to a major franchise. At least not one as colossal as what “The Purge” became through five films, two seasons of a TV show, and a brainworm so deeply embedded in popular culture that even your grandmother who has never seen it knows what “The Purge” is. After the original movie’s Stanley Film Festival screening in 2014, creator James DeMonaco quipped that his script was seeded by he and his wife, having been cut off in traffic, just joking about how convenient it would be if they were allowed to kill one person each year.
It appears obvious now, but “The Purge” (review here) didn’t seem so politically charged then. DeMonaco concocted this impossibly crazy concept where America legalized all crime for 12 hours every year as a means of placating the population’s animalistic instincts. Then he used it to make an uncomplicated home invasion thriller. His movie had drama. It had intensity. What it didn’t have was an overt agenda couched in commentary reflective of the country’s contemporary social climate. Maybe that’s because the climate wasn’t quite so hot. As economic and cultural divides grew wider, “The Purge’s” purpose evolved beyond simply supplying action-oriented suspense, either unavoidably or inevitably.
From a terribly tumultuous presidency to the racism reckoning inspired by George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, America experienced incredible upheaval in the years since the first film’s debut. As a result of the era in which it arrives, “The Forever Purge” hits a lot differently than “The Purge” did in 2014. What once seemed like “too far out” of an idea, even for dystopian horror, now seems ready to become reality. Instead of saying, “That could never happen here,” it’s now more difficult to believe that the Purge hasn’t happened yet. For good as well as for bad, that makes “The Forever Purge” harder to take as escapist entertainment since it’s really holding up a frighteningly timely mirror to uncomfortable truths about the root of America’s ongoing problems.
What’s really wild about that is “The Forever Purge” was written and filmed before the COVID-19 pandemic. And yet, the film is eerily prescient with its parallel prediction that, when faced with fatal threats that can only be solved through common sense and community, selfish idiots would rather say, “F*ck what’s best for everyone. No one can force me to protect someone else’s life by putting a piece of fabric over my mouth while I’m inside Target for 10 minutes. Freedom!”
In “The Forever Purge,” organized anarchists decide that government guidance doesn’t apply to them. (Hmmm, who does that sound like?) Although the Purge officially ends at its usual time, the ‘Forever Purgers’ use the opportunity to advance their supremacist agenda by keeping the killing going until they’ve eradicated everyone they claim is undermining the country. (Gee, who does that sound like?) Martial law and the military are outmatched against these delusional ‘freedom fighters’ who’ve been emboldened by the notion that they can believe “alternative facts” and do whatever they want, even if that means causing continuous chaos. (Who does that- you get the picture.)
The effects of this never-ending Purge are seen in the plight of Juan and his wife Adela. Both are Mexican immigrants who entered the country illegally. Adela works as a chef while Juan works as a ranch hand for a wealthy farming family. One of those ranchers, Dylan, is racist. He doesn’t think he is. Dylan merely insists that people should stick to their own kind because it’s too tasking to understand different cultures. He’ll have to get over that grievance. After America literally goes up in flames, Dylan and Juan reluctantly work together to rescue their loved ones while battling their way to the border.
“The Purge” movies have been rather redundant to a degree because their focus is always framed around murder, murder, murder, even though all other crimes are supposedly legal too. Now the messaging in these movies is also getting redundant. However, as much blame can be assigned to current conditions as it can toward the films.
Income inequality worsens daily. Unapologetic bigotry hasn’t run this rampant since segregation. “The Purge” series has kept its finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the world at large, but the sad fact is that our most pressing issues aren’t changing, so it feels like the films aren’t doing anything differently either. When “The Forever Purge” imagines violence based on hate, envy, and outright reveling in cruelty so someone can feel superior to those who are subjugated, it echoes headlines so closely that what the film wishes to say is either preaching to the choir or else falling on deaf ears. We’re numbly going in circles with these themes, although again, America continues running repetitive routes at the same time.
Subtlety has never been a key component of this franchise. The flipped dynamics of “The Forever Purge” follow suit by being so on the nose they practically pulverize both bone and cartilage. It takes a special kind of obliviousness to miss the movie’s meaning when Native Americans help affluent white people cross to the south side of the Rio Grande, or when a Mexican flag waving in the wind supplants the Stars and Stripes as a safe symbol of freedom.
But how can “The Forever Purge” not nudge so forcefully with its elbows? It certainly makes sense that a populace desperately devoted to antiquated beliefs about bearing arms would be the same people dedicating themselves to imaginary acts of defiant revolution under the misappropriation of patriotism. We see that every day.
Don’t get the wrong impression. It’s not all mirrored misery. “The Forever Purge” still has just as much gunplay, just as many rocket-powered explosions, and just as many bullets blasting apart faces as ever, maybe more so. I wasn’t turned off or tuned out to the fictional fantasy element that’s very much in play. It’s as heart-poundingly energetic as any Purge film has been. But with current events weighing on my mind, I consciously realized that “The Forever Purge’s” wicked world is no longer as twistedly fun as it used be. It’s too terrifyingly close to home.
Hey, it’s not the film’s fault that reality caught up to a previously outrageous vision of America allowing its boiling anger to erupt like Pompeii. “The Forever Purge” is the most believable depiction yet of what a Purge would actually look like and how people would exploit it to indulge in evil. Now it just feels less like enjoying a popcorn B-movie in a theater and more like watching the nightly news on a panic room monitor.
Review Score: 75
At least the movie only runs 70 minutes, though I suppose that extra 10 technically disqualifies it from being a literal amateur hour.