Mark Reviews Movies: THE FOREVER PURGE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 1, 2021

An administration that pushed nationalism, wrapped itself in the flag of the United States, regularly appealed to the racism and xenophobia of its most extreme followers, and wasn't opposed to violence finds itself with a bit of a problem. Those on the extreme end of the administration's supporters don't want the party to be finished. Goaded by the administration's own statements and a sense loyalty to it and their own hatred for those who are different from them, those zealous supporters enact an insurrection against the country and the rules that govern it.

If someone said The Forever Purge had been written sometime around mid-January of this year, that statement would be easy enough to believe. Like its predecessors, this sequel is smart and scathing about the politics happening in the background of its story, but this one is particularly prescient about the end result of the core of the series' political back story. What happens here, as the most rabid followers of the New Founding Fathers of America decide they aren't going let to the rule of law hold them back from showing their unbridled support, turns out to be frighteningly accurate.

The screenplay, written by the series' originator and constant James DeMonaco, obviously wasn't written this year, of course, even if it feels as if it could have been. It could have been because of the big-picture political trajectory of this story, yes. It also could have been because, in usual fashion for this series, the actual story is founded upon providing a lot of cheap thrills—plenty of violence, a few easy scares, even more violence. The end result of what seems to be the endgame for this series is more of the same: overly simplistic and more than a bit exploitative of real-world perils.

We should figure out the simplistic part pretty quickly. It's revealed that, at some point following the rebellion against and defeat of the NFFA in The Purge: Election Year, the hyper-nationalist party regained power in a subsequent election (Let's hope DeMonaco isn't too prophetic). Their first action, obviously, was to reinstate the annual Purge—a 12-hour period every year when all crime, including murder, is permitted. It doesn't matter how any of this came to be. It only matters that there's an excuse for the continuation for this franchise. It's about as transparent as one can get.

This story, which basically skips past the official Purge, is set in Texas. The underlying issue is immigration, mainly from Mexico. We meet Juan (Tenoch Huerta) and Adela (Ana de la Reguera), a married couple who fled Mexico to escape retribution from the drug cartels. We also meet Dylan (Josh Lucas) and his family, who run a ranch, where Juan works, near a small town. The Purge unfolds, and all of the major or seemingly important characters—add to the previous ones Juan's best friend T.T. (Alejandro Edda) and Dylan's not-too-and-then-very pregnant wife Cassie (Cassidy Freeman), sister Harper (Leven Rambin), and father (played by Will Patton)—survive.

They're not safe, though, because some people have had enough of limiting the Purge to a single night. They want to institute an "Ever After" Purge, with the goal of "cleansing" the country of "foreigners" and other "undesirable" groups. Juan, Adela, T.T., Dylan, and his surviving family try to make a run for Mexico, which, like Canada, has opened its borders for refugees from the violence that's spreading across the United States.

Nobody suggested this was subtle. Indeed, nothing about the politics of this series has been subtle since the first installment, but for all of the potentially thoughtful intentions of DeMonaco and director Everardo Valerio Gout, everything about these characters, this story, and these background details is too broad, too over-the-top, and too much like a caricature.

There's something a bit disingenuous about turning the white supremacists here into little more than mustache-twirling villains, with one in particular pursuing our party of protagonists across the state for revenge. Also confounding are Dylan, who's basically an ethnic nationalist (He doesn't hate people based on race or ethnicity, but he does believe that such groups should "stick to their own kind"), and whatever point we're supposed to take from his beliefs.

If this series has taught us anything, it's that these movies are not interested in inspecting or expanding or even much thinking about the political foundation of its own world. The Forever Purge continues that tradition, as a few solid and even daring ideas are thoroughly overshadowed by mindless action and a routinely shallow plot.

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