The Forever Purge has a good enough premise and execution that it didn't need to be quite as blunt as it is. You'd need a knife in your brain to not immediately see what this movie is saying, which can make it feel a little preachy. If you like where it's standing you probably won’t mind too much, not when the action scenes and the suspense are this well done.
It didn’t take long for the New Founding Fathers of America to be re-elected and for the annual Purge to be re-instituted. Juan (Tenoch Huerta) and Adela (Ana de la Reguera) know what to expect, take the necessary precautions to emerge from the one night of the year where all crime is legal, and expect to get back to business as usual the next day. Unfortunately, Purger groups have a different idea about the way things should be…
The film begins by showing us illegal immigrants crossing Mexico's border. Even with the yearly night of legal crime and a growing movement of nativism and racism, this United States are still a place people desperately want to escape to. After the Purge ends, we see that the “Purge Purification Force” and other similarly-minded groups have organized in numbers great enough that one night of violence has turned into an unending state of violence; violence mostly committed by white people against non-white people. We are shown that other groups - the impoverished, for example - are also rising against their rich "masters" but generally, the film is about immigrants and the threat believers in "true" Americans pose.
The Forever Purge paints things with such broad strokes I’m not sure it’s helping the cause it wants to champion. Juan, Adela, fellow migrant worker T.T. (Alejandro Edda), and their employers - Dylan and Cassie Tucker (Josh Lucas and Cassidy Freeman) - realize their only escape from the “Forever Purge” will be to cross the border into nearby Mexico. Dylan’s hostile feelings towards the immigrants are never truly addressed because compared to the raving lunatic with a swastika tattooed on his face, he is a non-issue. When the series revealed that the annual Purge was about culling the poor and homeless, that the annual Purge DOESN’T work, the series stopped being a fun "what if". It became about our world. That sort of story requires some finesse.
If I sound overly critical, it’s because I enjoyed the film nonetheless and want the series (Which aside from the first way back in 2013 has been consistently good) to be just a little bit better. As a sequel, it’s great. While it basically ignores the ending of The Purge: Election Year, this is a horrifying scenario. The lunatics have taken over the asylum. Mad Max-like gangs are killing anyone that doesn't share their same ideals. Like before, the masks and costumes the purgers wear are eerie and disturbing. The premise is horrifying but told through the action medium and it's a great evolution of the story so far. The characters know which world they live in, which makes them competent and genre-savvy once things go wrong.
We’re still waiting for the Purge series to produce a great film that’s doing something new and fresh… while also giving us a lesson that’s nice and subtle AND living up to its potential. In some ways The Forever Purge gives fans something new, and something familiar as well. (November 23, 2021)