The Purge writers, in reality, have a pretty easy job. Just pick a political angle from the current administration, and then attach the Purge to it. You know, the Purge, that “all crime is legal 1 day a year” thing that I’m pretty certain a desperate President will consider at some point. After 4 movies and a TV series, The Forever Purge finds a new angle by pulling from the headlines and changing the location. You’ll start to feel the Purge stories are closer to their end than their beginning, but there’s enough good stuff in this one to go along for another day(?) of sex, stealing, and murder.
We’ve now left the cities in The Forever Purge and now are on the Texas/Mexico border. Married couple Juan (Tenoch Huerta) and Adela (Ana de la Rugera) have recently illegally crossed the border, and are now happily living in the US. Both are working; Adela works in a meat processing plant, and Juan works for horse farmer Caleb Tucker (Will Patton) and his family, including his kids Dylan (Josh Lucas) and Harper (Leven Rambin) and Dylan’s wife Cassie (Cassidy Freeman). On Purge night, Adela and Juan find safety in a fortified setting and return home that morning to safety, since the Purge is over…?
And that’s where this movie plants its political flag. Clearly inspired by what happened on January 6th 2021, The Forever Purge points out that the more you continually stoke resentment and anger in people, at some point, they’ll stop listening to you when you tell them to stop, because they were told to be violent, over and over again. And usually, once you realize it’s too late, the country descends into chaos because no one listens to anyone anymore. This concept about “taking the country back” is nicely undercut with Chiago (Zahn McClarnon), a Native American activist pointing out how the Forever Purgers maybe should study a history book or two. The move to Texas is also a smart choice, so this Purge movie can focus on immigration politics which haven’t really been allegorized yet in a purge movie. That immigration conversation is too complex for the Purge to tackle thought, finding some conclusions that don’t exactly work, but if you’re too pissed off at cable news outlets and their “news entertainment” model, then maybe The Forever Purge will be a fun way to see the extremes of border life. And maybe you’ll see how the ill-treated minorities are more well equipped for a forever purge than we give them credit for because of the uphill battle they fight on a daily basis.
This is also a Purge movie too, so you know there’s gonna be some innovative murdering going on. The first half of the movie is more of a disappointment sadly, as we see just the Texas remixes of Purge masks and gun violence. Hey, at least they cast the most over the top terrifying white supremacist to scare the bejesus out of everyone and know who the good guys are! The movie is much more exciting when our protagonists reach El Paso. At this point, we have hit citywide anarchy, and the treacherous traversing through the streets is equally terrifying and riveting thanks to the well designed sets and special effects. Ana de la Rugera is having herself a summer! She earns that top spot in the billing by turning Adela into an action hero that’s impossible not to root for. Zahn McClarnon and Veronica Falcon are also extremely engaging, and could maybe be the focal points of the next purge movie.
The Forever Purge is messy, in every sense of the word. There are high highs and low lows, potent political satire and hilarious extrapolation, total evil and amazing abnegation. That mixture of polar opposites somehow works every time we revisit it. I just hope we find our way out of the seemingly endless end time so we can have one last “Final Purge” movie and be done with the franchise. I can only look in a black mirror so many times before I squirm.