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The “Purge” films are alternately eerie, frightening, coy, and safe, and they appear to be stuck in a kind of intellectual uncanny valley: too much, but not enough. The series is about the insatiable desire for violence that has always been ingrained in the American psyche, as well as how ritualized and joyful the expression of that desire has always been. It’s the germ of a concept that, at first glance, appears to be incendiary and audacious. Nonetheless, the series (which now includes a two-season television drama) makes a point of remaining vague enough that American viewers can read each new entry through the generic survival-story lens of “decent people trying to endure terror” without having to question their own vision of life too much. There is something about the Purge-o-verse that is about class and exploitation, sort of, and about racism and xenophobia, sort of, as well as about American paranoia and bloodthirstiness in general. It’s a generic dystopian tale that’s no more or less serious than “The Hunger Games” or “Resident Evil,” only nastier, and it doesn’t do much to distinguish itself from those two films. Civilization collapses as a result of the actions of bad people.
This continuation and expansion of the franchise is set near the United States-Mexico border and revolves around Mexican immigrants, as is “The Forever Purge.” Although they’ve relocated to avoid the violence of drug cartels who have taken over large swaths of their home country, they’ve discovered that things are just as bad up north, albeit in a different way. Adela and Juan, played by Ana de la Reguera and Tenoch Huerta, are a married couple who find work in a small Texas town—Juan as a cowboy on a ranch and Adela as a meatpacking plant worker. To inquire as to why Adela and Juan needed to relocate to the United States in order to discover that the Purge-era United States is a bad place for people like them is to identify oneself as a spoilsport. It’s been years since purge nights were instituted, and the country has been fighting an irreversible takeover by a modern-day Nativist party for nearly as long. The country is also in general a bloody cesspool, with a significant percentage of citizens addicted to rage and desirous of hurting others because committing violence gives them a false sense of power, even if they aren’t in the grand scheme of things.
After the events of “The Purge: Election Year” in 2016, in which the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA) and their candidate, Minister Edwidge Owens, were defeated and Purge Nights were banned, this film takes place after the events of “The Purge: Election Year.” The National Federation of the Blind is still active, unfortunately. They want the Purge reinstated and made continuous so that they can freely exterminate native or naturalized minorities, as well as any immigrant who isn’t white, in order to maintain their control over the population. There are other militia and gang-type groups that want similar indulgences for their own political reasons (for example, there are representatives of a class reductionist leftist group that wants to execute one-percenters and their families, much like a scary cartoon cousin of the DSA) that want similar indulgences. Also present are common criminals and psychopaths who have no particular religious beliefs, but who simply desire the freedom to go on their own personal droog rampage whenever they feel like it.
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As the “final chapter” in the series, written and co-produced by series creator James Demonaco and directed by Mexican-American filmmaker Everardo Gout, this new film (which has been dubbed the “final chapter” in the franchise—a likely storyline) goes several steps further than previous entries in the series in terms of saying something other than “America is innately violent” or “America is a violent society.” It grounds its brutality in recent political events, most notably the construction of a border wall by former President Donald Trump, Trump’s channeling and amplifying of white grievance, and the influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants into the United States, among other things.
The Forever Purge Quiz
However, by the end of the film, the message is reduced to “we’re all in this together, can’t we all get along?” after a period of posturing, we can all agree that heavily armed and openly bigoted terror groups run by Anglo-Americans are bad, and that wanting to murder rich white bigoted exploiters, while historically comprehensible, is also bad, at least in relation to the Ten Commandments; and that once such extremists are dealt with, we can all get back to being decent to one another, which is the True American Way, deep down.
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In the person of Juan’s employer, ranch owner Caleb Tucker, we find someone who is sympathetic to our heroes’ plight (Will Patton). Truman Tucker is an exceptional individual. He is a wealthy yet socially liberal Anglo Texan who volunteers while being terrorized by a white leftist and his minions. Tucker believes that Americans are living on stolen land and that their refusal to acknowledge this is a manifestation of their own unexamined privilege. “You have no right to express dissatisfaction with the very system that you are supporting,” he claims. Dylan Tucker (Josh Lucas), Juan’s son and heir apparent, is initially presented as a straightforward racist, but the film later suggests that his attitude (that races should stick with their own kind, an idea Juan appears to be open to) is at the very least less horrible than the desire of roving white supremacist gangs to kill anyone who doesn’t look like them. When brown-skinned people refuse to comply with their orders to “speak English,” they set entire city blocks ablaze.
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A racially mixed bomber crew assortment of characters, including Dylan’s pregnant wife Cassie (Cassie Freeman), flees to the Mexican border to avoid American violence as part of the plot’s eventual conclusion (an admittedly clever reversal of how this narrative typically works; Canada is also offering Americans asylum for a limited time, as long as they come unarmed). “The Forever Purge” appears to be saying that we are better than this. Are we, on the other hand? Native Americans and descendants of slaves, on the other hand, would disagree. But that’s outside the scope of this review, and it appears to be outside the purview of Demonaco’s expanded universe of societal collapse and extended tracking shots through carnage on Main Street in the style of “Children of Men”-style extended tracking shots.
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The final product is a jumbled mess. It’s possible to appreciate how “The Forever Purge” sharpens things up until it speaks to what happened in the United States under Trump (primarily the “let’s just say all the hateful stuff loud and proud” aspect), while also noticing that the franchise is once again stirring free-floating anxiety and rage into a stewpot and dipping into it every few minutes to serve up a tasty bit of violence, while never focusing its vision to the point where it stings. A few grimly poetic flourishes are included, such as when a neo-Nazi prisoner chained in the back of a police wagon listens to the array of guns going off during their drive and is able to identify each make and caliber by listening to the sound of the gunshots. “Homegrown music from the heartland,” he exclaims, his face contorted with glee. “That is American music, motherfucker!” says the narrator.
There are some excellent performances here, particularly those of De la Reguera and Huerta, whose reactive closeups have a silent-movie expressiveness; and Lucas, who once again demonstrates his willingness to play deeply unlikable characters while maintaining the illusion that he’s a nice guy offscreen. During the final third of the film, which introduces nasty Nazis and Nazi-adjacent baddies only to quickly kill them off, it feels like you’re watching a videogame with real actors.
The film is currently showing in theaters.
For more personality quizzes check this: Demon Slayer Mugen Train Quiz.
