DEATH WARMED OVER
Final instalment of the blood-soaked Purge franchise is here — run for your life
Despite the title of this, the fifth and (so I'm promised) last in the hyper-violent Purge series of movies, I thought The Forever Purge was over just 30 minutes into its run. After all, it opens the day before the annual Purge, which, if you're unfamiliar with the franchise, is a 12-hour period when all crime is legal, including but not limited to parking in disabled spots, dining-and-dashing and keeping a pet monkey. Oh, and murder.
We then meet racist Texas ranch owner Dylan (Josh Lucas), his pregnant wife (Cassidy Freeman), her sister (Leven Rambin) and some Mexican immigrants, including ranch hand Juan (Tenoch Huerta) and his girlfriend Adela (Ana de la Reguera). The Purge commences, everyone hunkers down for the night, and then the all-clear sounds. Huzzah!
But wait! Seems some really evil Americans, fed up with what they see as too much immigration, have decided to keep things going indefinitely with what they're calling The Forever Purge. Or as I like to think of it, Purrrrrrrge!
Now Dylan and all have to deal with bad guys intent on killing anyone not aligned with their cause — and, racist as Dylan is, he's not racist enough for them.
They decide to flee to Mexico, which has opened its border for six hours to let in American refugees — an idea I liked a lot more when it was a throwaway joke in The Day After Tomorrow and not a major plot point. Canada is also letting people in, but since it's more than six hours away, we have to merely imagine how that scenario would play out.
In The Forever Purge, of course, it plays out in blood, mixed with a pastiche of tropes from some better (and some just-as-bad) movies. There's a bit of Saw in the traps set by the Forever Purgers, and some Mad Max in the desert chase scene near the end of the movie; and even a touch of Green Book, as Dylan learns that Mexicans aren't all that bad, after spending 90 minutes dodging rednecks trying to murder him.
On the plus side, the movie features the Wilhelm scream used when a character is shot by an arrow, a nice homage to 1953's The Charge at Feather River, when a similar shot to a character named Wilhelm gave that iconic sound effect its name.
The Forever Purge continues the trend of being slightly more expensive than the previous chapter while still remaining cheap (budget = $18-million), and thus all but guaranteeing it'll turn a tidy profit. This one has a new director in Everardo Gout, but creator James Demonaco returns as the sole writer. And as usual the cast is all new. (Spoiler alert: Not everyone makes it out alive.)
In fact, the only performer constant across every one of the films is Cindy Robinson, a voice actor who mostly works in video games. Here she's the voice of the Emergency Broadcast System, telling everyone that the Purge is coming so they can find safety. I suggest you heed her warning.