The raison d’etre of the Purge series has always been the degree to which its pulpy premise—a 12-hour yearly event when all crime, including murder, is allowed—can be gleefully exploited. Within the confines of this narrow conceit, filmmakers have, with various degrees of success, tackled a wide range of political and sociological ideas. Director Everardo Gout’s The Forever Purge follows suit by taking on the timely topic of immigration, but by spending a majority of its running time in the wake of the latest purge, centering its narrative on events that are barely tangential to the crime free-for-all, the film plays out like a generic action film that just so happens to be set at the U.S.-Mexican border.
The Purge films have addressed white supremacy before, so it’s no surprise to see organized networks of racist militias playing a large role in The Forever Purge. But where Gerard McMurray’s The First Purge astutely drew connections between on-the-ground white supremacist terrorism and high-level politicians and military leaders, The Forever Purge’s critiques of how racism manifests violence are neither precise nor subversive. The film’s well-armed militias are clearly inspired by the New Founding Fathers of America (our near-future country’s reactionary ruling party and institutors of the purge), but they’re ultimately shown to be working outside of their (and the police and military’s) jurisdiction, freeing the powers that be from any real culpability in this post-purge uprising to eradicate minorities.
There’s something to be said for showing how violent hate groups inspired by those in power can escape their control and even turn against them. But The Forever Purge never delves into the inner workings of the militia group at its center, largely presenting its members as disembodied voices spouting off about “purification” and how “America will be America once again.” One neo-Nazi, while strapped down in a police van, waxes poetic about the sound of shots fired from various assault rifles (and in a voice reminiscent of “Macho Man” Randy Savage for some reason), lauding them as “music from the American heartland.” I mean, the Purge films have never been subtle, but this one is blunt to the extreme.
The clumsiness of The Forever Purge’s message-scoring extends not only to its poorly sketched villains, but also to its protagonists. We get a near-mythical Native American warrior (Zahn McClarnon) skilled with a bow and arrow; a Mexican cowboy, Juan (Tenoch Huerta), who can instantly calm the wildest of horses; even a white cowboy, Dylan (Josh Lucas), who learns that minorities are actually decent people only after they save his life on multiple occasions.
The Forever Purge takes as bleak a view of America as any of the other Purge films, but its portrait of a divided country loses the sense that its characters are flesh-and-blood people striving to get through an ultraviolent period together. Instead, several of them come to feel like mere tokens. As it strives for a grander metaphor of life in America, The Forever Purge resorts to even more sweeping generalizations that make the prior films in the series feel like pinnacles of subtlety, rendering its ideas both ham-fisted and too vague to land with a punch.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
