The Forever Purge (15)

A band of blood-thirsty, lawless marauders decides that The Purge shouldn't stop at daybreak and they continue to slaughter without mercy. On the morning after the killing is supposed to end, one group attacks the Texas ranch of Caleb Tucker and his family, including son Dylan and daughter Harper. Overwhelmed and outnumbered, the Tuckers and Dylan's pregnant wife Cassie rely on Mexican ranch hands Juan and TT and Juan's his wife Adela to survive.

LondonNet Film Review
The Forever Purge (15)

Shocking images of enraged Republican voters storming the Capitol in Washington DC, steadfast in their belief that democracy had been wilfully abused in the US presidential election, was a sobering reminder of the fault line running through America’s two-party political system and the pernicious power of social media to light a fuse on mob mentality. Screenwriter James DeMonaco, who gave birth to The Purge in 2013 – a government-sanctioned 12-hour period when American citizens can kill without legal reprisals – bluntly dials up the Trumpian narrative and immigration hysteria in the fifth instalment of the horror franchise. His script contrives a bloodthirsty battle royale close to the Mexican border and crudely echoes divisive rhetoric to pit geographical neighbours against each other under the auspices of making America great again…

Two sequels and one prequel after a neat inception, The Forever Purge directed by Everardo Valerio Gout runs on creative fumes and makes the fatal misstep of abandoning its own rules by unleashing a tsunami of poisonously patriotic violence across the 50 states. Nail-biting tension has always stemmed from characters fighting with every fibre in their bodies to survive until the deafening trill of the klaxon that signals the end of the annual Purge. Once DeMonaco’s script permits the slaughter to continue indefinitely, suspense evaporates and plausibility is fatally wounded as beleaguered characters move unscathed through running street battles between purgers, terrified citizens and the US Army National Guard.

In the fictional Texan border town of Los Feliz Valley, ranch owner Caleb Tucker (Will Patton) and his family, son Dylan (Josh Lucas), daughter Harper (Leven Rambin) and Dylan’s heavily pregnant wife Cassie (Cassidy Freeman), survive the annual Purge inside their fortified home. When the klaxon sounds, they release the metal shutters and come face to face with masked farm hands, who are coordinating attacks across the state to forcibly address wealth inequality with their guns and knives.

Mexican ranch hands Juan (Tenoch Huerta) and TT (Alejandro Edda), who are loyal to Caleb, intervene and go on the run with the terrified Tuckers in search of Juan’s wife Adela (Ana de la Reguera), who is a prime target for the Purge Purification Force led by Alpha (Jeffrey Doornbos).

The Forever Purge takes a sledgehammer to timely social and political concerns, reducing Texas to flaming rubble as Americans and Mexicans symbolically join forces to defeat a common enemy: intolerance. Huerta and de la Reguera’s characters are the most likable pawns in a serviceable plot that thinks big for tiny rewards. A Purger death trap involving a sacrificial goat feels misplaced, like something retrieved from the reject bin of the Saw movies, which ran out of steam years ago. Regrettably, DeMonaco’s dystopian creation suffers the same disappointing fate.

– Kim Hu