The Forever Purge elevates allegorical subtlety to a masonry artform.
Oh, thank God there’s another PURGE movie because I was starting to get withdrawal pangs following the end of the reality TV version which ran from 2016 to January 20th this year. Oh, sure, there’s that spin-off featuring an enfeebled, bitter old man holed up in Florida but it’s got none of the whacky melodrama of old and, to be honest, all the upcoming teasers make it seem like it’s going to turn out to be another LAW & ORDER spin-off rather than a continuation of THE WORST WING. So THE PURGE is back – and this time it’s FOREVER!
In 2048, eight years after their defeat in THE PURGE: ELECTION YEAR, the New Founding Fathers of America regain power and re-institute their signature annual Purge policy once again. At the same, time, a migrant couple, Juan and Adela, cross the border into Texas illegally to escape from a Mexican drug cartel and start a new life. Ten months later, Juan and Adela join a migrant group behind a walled sanctuary with paid armed guards to protect them during The Purge, the night passes without event for the sheltering group but when the morning sirens come, a hardline group calling themselves the Purge Purification Force declare that this Purge will never end.
You know what? The producers of these movies need to stop pussyfooting around and just call a spade a spade. Or, in this case, a Purger a MAGA supporter. Everyone knows that who these films are about, especially this one. It’s not like they’re going to enthusiastically embrace a movie where they’re the bad guys, so losing audience share isn’t likely to be that big a problem. The MAGA comparison is particularly obvious this time around because this is blatantly a gossamer-thin allegory of the January 6th Insurrection done with all the subtlety and sophistication of a guy wearing face paint and a buffalo helmet waving a confederate flag. As a metaphor, though, THE FOREVER PURGE leaves something of a nasty taste in the mouth. There’s a direct parallel between the racist, white supremacist Purge Purification Force and the Capitol rioters, both whipped into a frenzy by manipulative populist politicians only to see their propagandized momma’s boy militias spin out of control. Or so this film wants you to believe. It’s an exercise in excusatory obfuscation, peddling the idea that the Republican New Founding Fathers leadership that whipped the Capitol Rioters Purge Purification Force into a frenzy were unaware of what they were doing, powerless to prevent what came next and shouldn’t really be held directly accountable. Well, to coin a phrase: FUCK THAT.
While it might be revelling in the message that the real threat to American democracy and freedom are the poor, white racists you kill along the way, in the interests of false equivalency balance, it makes sure to include a rich white racist amongst the protagonists, just to hammer home that lynchpin of the American dream that having money trumps everything else.
Alongside its crass political commentary, THE FOREVER PURGE also puts paid to that old chestnut that all that’s needed to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. For a start, it kind of suggests that there are no good guys if they have guns and while the bad guys are borderline cartoonishly bad, the so-called good guys are fairly liberal (heh) with the bullets as well. There’s a very definite attitude on both sides of shoot first and don’t ask questions ever. Despite this, while THE FOREVER PURGE shows the battle is won, we also hear that the war is lost, no doubt leaving the border open for THE PURGE: CIVIL WAR before we know it. There’s no political insight or deeper understanding of the very real issues which plague modern-day America here. This is Trump-era discourse, a pithy, puerile and partisan excretion delivered in 280 characters or less in movie form.
It’s been teetering on the brink for a while now, but THE FOREVER PURGE sees the series hit an ignominious nadir, offering merely torture porn for gun fetishist and milquetoast survivalists, for whom this movie’s probably a dream come true. For everyone else, it’s a tedious nightmare.

