Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Ana de la Reguera, Tenoch Huerta, Josh Lucas, Leven Rambin, Cassidy Freeman, Alejandro Edda, Will Patton, Will Brittain, Sammi Rotibi, Zahn McClarnon, Gary Nohealii, Gregory Zaragoza, Brett Edwards, Carol Cantu, Keenan Henson, Kacey Montoya, Joshua Dov, Annie Littel, Lupe Carranza, Willow Beuoy, Dylan Morales-Brodie, Steve Kuzj, Yomary Cruz, Jeffrey Doornbos, Susie Abromeit, Emily Trujillo, LaSaundra Gibson, Patricio Doren, Marco Martinez, Veronica Falcón, Edward Gelhaus, Hope Lauren, Coda Boesel, Alfonso Illan, Shaw Jones.
In time we shall look to dystopian films with a kind of distilled fondness, for even in their subject matter they hold a branch of hope out to the world.
The film lover watches these disturbed cinematic endings, the kind where humanity has wiped itself out with the use of a virus, where monkeys, apes and all simians have learned language and overthrow humans, reducing them to the roles they once were forced into, the cinephile will literary hug themselves in the open as they watch an antipodean hero in search of oil in a wasteland, and they will almost drown themselves in happiness as they remember the thrill of being exposed to the sheer cool of a society only existing for anyone under the age of 30…dystopia is big business, because we, every one of us understands at some level, that the human race is the virus, that we deserve to be replaced, that we have become reliant on excess and the shedding of responsibility in the name of hedonism and hate.
The dystopian nightmare is stopped because the film asks us to think of the consequences, and for a time that was perhaps the truest form of attained wisdom that we could find a way to stop the future from happening, that it was just a story, that humanity could find a way to a place, if not utopia, then at least enlightenment. Then came along The Purge and its successors, and one by one they have chipped away at the resistance in the mind, the thought that something so terrible as what was dreamt of in the lined smoking rooms of the so-called elite could in fact truly happen in a democratic world.
A sign of our times, the uneven balance that has been wrought and waged as war against us and, it could be argued, with our consent, the searing pain of ever more isolation making us question exactly what we stand for and how easily we can be manipulated to make the wrong choice if we are pushed into a corner hard enough.
The Forever Purge, the fifth in the long running franchise, may still have its links to the dystopian cinematic pedigree it has long championed, but it now can also be seen as the stark warning, the prelude to how civil war in The United States of America could play out; all it needs is a nudge, a lunatic at the helm who plays to populism, to fear, and to big business for such an event to occur…but surely, you say, such a move would never happen!
The Forever Purge goes further than any of its predecessors, and whilst not capturing the full extent of anarchy dressed in the clothes of the realm of fractured democracy would play out, it is nonetheless a film of powerful and immediate intent; a film that is unabashed in its forceful attention of how close we are to seeing racism and fascism take hold openly in a country that has been the long-time epitome of valued freedom…and it can happen anywhere as all right minded people can attest.
The Forever Purge, a moment in fiction on screen that is perhaps the closest visual reading yet of a time to come; perceptive, arresting, conclusive, the scourge of the purge continues.
Ian D. Hall