The Forever Purge: Pa’ La Cultura
From dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, to now seeing the Purge release it’s fifth and final installment we have a world of trouble filling up our plates. With the newest purge, one’s life just stays getting involved with some sort of danger. On one hand you die from a deadly disease that’s rampaging through the world, on the other you may die or at the very least get hurt, from dealing from a deadly white supremacist .
That’s what Everardo Valerio Gouts’ newest purge, The Forever Purge, deals with. Taking a depiction of what immigrants, Mexican immigrants as its focus, deals with with white supremacists and purists in this country [United States of America] while also having the film’s trope of anarchy and legal use of force against innocents based on pure hatred, superiority complex, and so forth. Although The Purge and it’s other films have spoken on political subjects and overall paint a picture of how governments could cause problems, not to mention how having certain laws can bring unprecedented consequences, this one hits close to home having the Latinx culture and discrimination being the underlining center of topic in an AMERICAN FILM.
You read it that last sentence right folks, this isn’t just a “Mexican Movie” because the director is of Mexican heritage and the main actors are Mexican actors, this is an AMERICAN movie that just so happens to have a Mexican director and actors.
Overview
Now having a movie with a budget of only 18 million, it’s going to have its fair share of problems, specifically dealing with editing. By that, I mean that certain scenes that have large areas of destruction didn’t look very realistic, or sound design not matching up to what’s happening in the scene. But with that aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It may come from seeing Mexican leads kicking ass or that the overall story, it’s really just enjoyable to watch. With a run time of ~90 minutes of without the extra ~30 of credits, it felt incredibly short, which to me meant that I was enjoying it so much that time passed a little too quick. The actors were great and the scripts, although having its rough patches here and there did a good job at telling its story from its first act to the third. But if you don’t believe me check out the movie still in theaters or on VOD, or at least the trailer down below and tell me what you think.
Review
To start, The Forever Purge is the last installment of The Purge franchise and what a way to end its run none other than addressing immigration, discrimination, white supremacy, and extreme puritans. Starring Ana de la Reguera (pictured above) as Adela, Tenoch Huerta as Juan, a couple that crossed the border in hopes of finding a better and safer life than in Mexico who also happened to cross months before the annual purge commences making it their first purge ever. We’ve seen Ana carry herself in many other films such as the recent Army of the Dead, Nacho Libre, Narcos and so many others both in Mexican entertainment and American made items. Tenoch Huerta has also been known to carry himself well in the films he’s been in, although made for Spanish speakers, hits like Sin Nombre and Narcos Mexico are great roles, not to mention having him cast as Namor in the upcoming Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Marvel film!
His work seems to be growing in the realm of American filmmaking, which is without a doubt a win for the Mexican and Latin community. If you haven’t checked out his work because of language barrier I urge you to check it out and have the subtitles put on, you won’t regret it.
Aside from these two incredible actress/actor, we have to include the other major dialogue characters. One other character that is a close friend of both characters above is T.T played by Alejandro Edda who’s had his fair share of amazing roles, such as in Narcos Mexico, Fear the Walking Dead, American Made and others. Although The Forever Purge can’t talk about supremacist and people balancing on the line of puritan or ally we are then introduced to Dylan Tucker played by Josh Lucas, Emma Kate played by Cassidy Freeman, and Harper Tucker played by Leven Rambin.
Now although both Cassidy’s character and Levin’s are accepting of their immigrant and Mexican employees/friends, Josh’s isn’t necessarily inclined to let the unknown culture in. Since the start of the film we can see his distaste for accepting either the help of Mexicans or of their culture even stating in a scene that he doesn’t necessarily hate them more so believes they should stay separated. Although, after the purge ends people are continuing the rampage, he and his family get in trouble and get saved by Juan and T.T and continue getting helped by them, it is then we begin to see a change and can easily tell the characters development throughout the remainder of the film.
With that, it honestly gives hope to certain people who aren’t yet completely blinded by prejudices, racism, etc. When you have a bit of prejudice against certain people and they are the only hope you have for survival, the only logical thing to do is overcome it and learn to trust them.
Overall this film takes an interesting approach to how immigrants are discriminated against in the US, although there isn’t a nation wide white supremacist uprising like The Forever Purge (YET) there is still violence that happens towards us all in the name of being a “true patriot” of this country.
I very much enjoyed this film even with its CGI problems and weird sound design, but that’s not a problem with actors or directorial guidance more so on the budget of the film and since this is only a 18 million dollar project one can’t compare to 50 or even 100 million dollar projects. Although the highest budget from the franchise, the charges on certain items add up like location costs, and it being near the border I imagine it isn’t cheap if filmed legally and properly, it’s not surprising that certain effects couldn’t hold up.
It’s not the best film ever made but it’s great in the fact that it touches on aspects to taboo for other English films and not to mention that it does it in an entertaining manner. But if you don’t believe me you’ll just have to go see it for yourself and let me know what you think, until next time peace.
The Nerd Corps 
I hate the purge movies. It’s like “horror” for people that don’t like horror. Kind of like disturbed being metal for people that don’t like metal.
LikeLike
It very much is a tamer horror that I feel encompasses a scarier thing in our world, human nature. It’s definitely not like a monster or killer showing up, but I think it’s more so to bring fear from not knowing if we could trust our neighbors if a thing like a Purge existed.
LikeLiked by 1 person