The Forever Purge Review: The Installments Keep Going, Why Shouldn't the Purge Itself?
The Purge franchise has seemed to always tell us something in its themes. We’ve seen racial tension touched in The First Purge, family strife in The Purge, and in the latest installment we see immigration tackled. The Forever Purge takes a look at what its America may look like if citizens continued The Purge after the most recent bloody 12 hour night.
The film opens with married couple Adela (Ana De La Reguera) and Juan (Tenoch Huerta), giving coyotes money to get them across the border from Mexico into America in search for a better life. Ten months later they seem to be on that path. Adela works in a kitchen while Juan works on the wealthy Tucker family’s ranch. The Tucker patriarch, Caleb (Will Patton), is impressed by Juan but Caleb’s son, Dylan (Josh Lucas), has issues with the hired help.
As the work day ends, preparation for The Purge begins. The Tucker family locks down in their secure home while Adela and Juan take a bus full of Mexican workers to a space that provides armed protection. This Purge isn’t about the 12 hours of mayhem though, it’s about what happens after. As Adela and Juan return to work, it becomes clear that some people are extending the annual sanctioned mayhem by continuing to kill and destroy. Thus, the survive the night films that we’ve become accustomed to seeing starts.
This installment is full of sermons and lectures on America’s malicious history of disenfranchising the poor and people of color. Colonialism and The American Dream are parts of conversations. In one scene, a swastika tattooed prisoner calls out every gun that he hears firing; he talks about the specific rhythm of the guns and calls it “American music”. It’s meant to be a creepy moment, but it rings full of authentic truth. We’re known for the fight for our 2nd amendment rights, so the film continues its analysis of who we are as Americans yet also continues its awkward handling of truth. It gives us stereotypes and archetypes to make its points.
Perhaps its most ironic moment is found in Americans running for the Mexican border in order to escape the Forever Purge. The film pays specific attention to the white Americans reliance on Mexican and Indigenous help to get across the border while being chased by white Americans who believe the country should be purged of those who don’t look like them. It’s a matching bookend to its beginning as Mexican news talks about American “Dreamers”.
Director Everardo Gout handles the action and blocking of scenes well. The film is entertaining for what it is and what you’d expect. Ana De La Reguera is a refreshing addition to women who can handle themselves in the killing fields. As her character navigates the turn of events, its evident there is much more to her than meets the eye, but it’s De La Reguera’s performance that is fun to watch. While writer/creator James DeMonaco may have written something that could have been straight from the headlines a year ago when it was supposed to be initially released (it was filmed in 2019), the film feels a bit dated.
However, you wade through its social commentary, the action and kills you’ve come to expect are there. I saw this at home and that’s just the way this film should be seen in my opinion! It’s a great streaming flick but not necessary for your first time back in theaters!
Rating: C+
"The First Purge" Review: It's Just a Movie...But
They say that practice makes perfect. While the fourth installment in the Purge franchise is far from perfection, there is something to it that is undeniably breaking through to speak to real world issues. Yes, The First Purge is more refined and closer to B-movie, survive the night status like some of the classic John Carpenter films. However, the real magic is in how much its’ premise feels a lot more tangible and believable in our present day political climate.
This film takes it back to the beginning when The Purge became The Purge. At this point, it’s called an experiment, created by Dr. Updale (Marisa Tomei). Rather than being nationwide, its’ first at bat is localized to Staten Island. In an effort to get members of the community to participate, the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA) offers $5,000 for wearing contacts that double as cameras with bonuses for committing violence. Potential candidates that range from psychotic and mentally ill to people trying to feed their family are analyzed by NFFA staff.
The formula here is no different. We’re introduced to the main characters early. Dmitri (Y’lan Noel) is the drug king of the borough. Nya (Lex Scott Davis) and Isaiah (Joivan Wade) are siblings who have each other’s back in a world without parents. Nya is an activist who believes the experiment is not good, while Isaiah is caught in the middle ground, seeing an illegal way to provide for him and his sister he starts dealing on the corner. Dolores (Mugga) is their hilarious neighbor and aunt figure in their lives.
In the midst of main character development, the NFFA is setting up cameras and surveillance around the island to broadcast to the world. Right before and once The Purge commences, so do the one-liners that strike a nerve. The Founding Father president states “We’re all Staten Islanders tonight”. Nya tells her old flame, Dmitri, “we have to make choices to heal or to hurt” after approaching him due to a setback Isaiah had on the street corner.
Since there is little ruckus outside of people robbing and looting when things start, Dr. Updale notes that in order for people to truly embrace The Purge “morality and religious dogma must be dropped”. It’s easy to gloss over that line, but it truly is the key to why The Purge works and why our current real life political climate is as it is. Even if you’re not religious, we all have a moral compass. Whether that compass has been pointed south by life, we all start out with the purity of knowing right from wrong. The statement is truly has Last Action Hero, off of the screen and into the real world impact.
With our morality in question, Arlo Sabien (Patch Darragh) the NFFA Chief of Staff, makes a call to spice things up. Simultaneously, director Gerard McMurray and writer James DeMonaco (who wrote all Purge films) do the same cinematically. Suddenly, white men wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods and throwback Nazi-like regalia show up on the island, forcing Dmitri and friends to fight back. There are particularly harrowing moments of racism and violence that come straight from our history’s headlines as klansmen shoot up a church with predominately black community members. One man is dragged through the street by his leg attached to a vehicle by chain. Tiki torches light the night. These images seem vaguely familiar. While the formula of the film calls for the main characters to get some payback on their oppressors, the joy that one feels for those kills is worth questioning. Sure, it’s just a movie, but why use Klan hoods as masks? That hadn’t been done before. It’s just a movie, but why are the clean cut white men in power positions to experiment in low-income neighborhoods that are comprised of people of color? It’s just a movie, but why does Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” close it out? The song is the rallying cry of this generation’s people of color. Again, see my opening statement, practice makes perfect and DeMonaco’s pen is getting closer to making powerful statements on the state of our union and lack their of.
Ultimately, the final act of the film is tense and suspenseful as Dmitri must “old school video game” his way up to the 14th floor of Nya’s project apartment building, taking out the bad guys along the way. McMurray’s direction is controlled and his frame is claustrophobic at times, allowing us to see what he wants us to see. He leads the audience to the end like a Carpenter throwback.
Some of the performances in this film are worth noting. Mainly, Y’lan Noel, who has an enormous presence on screen and natural charisma that forces you to root for him, even when he’s murdering people. Mugga provides plenty of laugh out loud moments in the film. In one scene she tells Nya that she left the church to look for her, then got the bubble guts and had to purge another way! Joivan Wade truly portrays a scared teenager trying to do what he thinks will help his family. Perhaps one character that will be a fan favorite is Skeletor, played by Rotimi Paul. He’s a giant psycho who wants to Purge from the opening scene. Rather than playing crazy, Paul truly makes Skeletor feel like the neighborhood fiend who finally gets to reek havoc on the world that looks down on him.
The First Purge certainly shows us how everything started. It’s the right length, and an authentic installment in the thesis of what all Purge films rest on in answering the question “what if all crime was legal for 12 hours?”. However, it low key shows us ourselves as well. That’s worth a deeper conversation after the lights come up.
Rating: B
"The Purge: Election Year" Review
It’s been two years since we last saw America purge in The Purge: Anarchy. This time it’s 2025 and America is on the verge of either electing a new president who wants to get rid of the purge, or a president who wants nothing but to see the annual 12 hours of all crime being legal continued. This weekend at the movies, I vote you save your money and wait for this one to hit your favorite streaming program!
Eighteen years before the present day in the film, Senator Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell) watched her family be murdered before her eyes on purge night. Since then, she has been on a mission to end the purge. Let’s not kid ourselves, her opponent is a Donald Trump-like character who believes in violence as the American Way. Frank Grillo reprises his role as Seargent Barnes but this time he’s the head of the Senator’s security.
We’re introduced to new characters in the beginning of the film, and it’s noticeably less than Anarchy’s cast. Bishop (Edwin Hodge) is a revolutionary fighting the NFFA (a trivia note, he's the only person who has been in all three films but he's at the forefront in this one), Joe (Mykelti Williams aka Bubba from Forrest Gump) is a small deli shop owner with the worst afro-centric stereotypical one-liners, and Laney (Betty Gabriel) is an ex-gangster who may have traded in violence for being a triage nurse but still has a shotgun near by. The character development is a little rushed, and the only new person I cared for was Laney as she had a great stamp of approval from a teenage hell-raiser (who comes back later in the film) in the beginning of the film.
The franchise hasn’t changed from its baseline since The Purge. The characters still have to survive the night. This time the goal is to protect the senator from the NFFA members and hired henchmen trying to take her out. The intriguing development this time is the culture and technology of the purge. Foreigners from around the world come to America to participate in the purge as a form of leisure, coined “murder tourists”. Purgers use drones to track people, set up sophisticated traps, and have fight clubs. You get a true sense that this America is fully realized throughout the film.
Writer/director of the trilogy, James DeMonaco, visually taps into the terror of the purge by taking what’s typically harmless and making it horrifying. A car wrapped in christmas lights, bumping Taylor Swift, and filled with teenage girls dressed in lingerie becomes a psychotic gang you don’t want to mess with. Unfortunately, this film seems to have lost its steam at the script level. DeMonaco has slowly brought a political/class undertone further to the forefront with each film, and Election Year clearly wants to speak on gun violence, the Black Lives Matter movement, religious fanaticism and our current election season. The subtlety in eluding to modern issues is tossed out for either on-the-nose dialogue, or long scenes that run its point into the ground.
I’ve been a fan of this franchise up until this point from a guilty pleasure perspective. The internal time clock on the films keep things moving, and its entertaining to see how the characters will survive. While The Purge: Election Year has its moments, overall it feels rushed and the characters are caricatures of their stereotype. I’m sure there will be another purge film, but this franchise’s clock may get punched if it doesn’t work on better character development and presenting issues in a more subtle way.
Rating: C-