Subtlety has never been the aim of James DeMonaco, the writer-director of the first trilogy of Purge flicks as well as screenwriter for the remaining sequels and all-around franchise figurehead, and that’s never been more clear than in The Forever Purge. Claiming to be the final film in the franchise that spawned four sequels and two seasons of a now-cancelled USA Network series, The Forever Purge puts our turbulent American politics front and center, creating a not-too-distant vision where MAGA-inspired insurrectionists continue the “legalized violence” at the film’s center beyond the allowed 12-hour window of the purge. A new dawn brings the continuation of violence as America enters a “forever purge”, a state of bullet-ridden eternal mayhem; a nightmarish ever after of racially-motivated violence.

Throughout its various incarnations, The Purge has always struggled to truly capitalize on the promise of a government-sanctioned night of legal crime. For all intents and purposes, that potential continues to go untapped. DeMonaco admittedly “borrowed” the concept of the first film from an early Star Trek episode ‘The Return of the Archons’ where a seemingly crime-free planet was allowed an annual anything-goes night of violent. To this day, that simple premise has been the most interesting aspect of DeMonaco’s franchise, borrowed though it may be, but his ability to coalesce a truly great story around that idea has since eluded the creator.

This time around, the story opens on Mexican husband and wife Adela (Ana de la Reguera) and Juan (Tenoch Huerta) who have paid coyotes to smuggle them beneath the border wall to the United States. Despite the fact that America has sanctioned murder, immigrants like Adela and Juan still cross over hoping for a better life in El Norte. This is suspect but we accept it and move along. The film jumps forward almost a year and both have settled into decent jobs. Adela works at a kitchen while Juan impresses as a cowboy for the wealthy rancher Caleb Tucker (Will Patton), though his suspiciously racist son Dylan (Josh Lucas) only sees the new ranch hand as unwanted competition.

The night of the purge comes and their parties lock down separately. The next morning, they realize with horror that a group self-identifying as “The Real Patriots of America” have ignored the sirens marking the end of the allotted purge time. Murder and mayhem rage in the streets. The killing haven’t stopped and the police and military can’t contain the violence. A race-war “forever purge” has begun.

Though The Forever Purge was one of many, many films that was delayed due to the pandemic, it’s one of the few that suffers most from its postponement. Originally scheduled for release July of 2020 when, importantly, Trump was still president, The Forever Purge misses out on really grappling with the political zeitgeist by being released a full five months after Trump left office. Some of its plot-points would have even come across as prophetic; a maximalist alternative vision of the real-life storming of the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. Instead, they remind us of the ugliest moments of recent American history and the fact that millions in our country tilt towards far-right fascistic tendencies. The scariest part of The Forever Purge is that some amongst us may watch and root for the openly-racist marauders.

And yet there’s such a glaring lack of dynamics in these movies that any attempt at political commentary comes across as little more than obvious and redundant. Everything is played at fortissimo, unsurprising since Michael Bay himself is a producer. Coupled with the fact that the action choreography is rather weak, a series of quick fisticuff cuts and unmemorable shoot-outs, and the dialogue is hacky and insipid (“motherfucker” is the film’s most commonly used word), this purge may be scheduled to go on indefinitely but the series has simply run out of steam.

The fact that the franchise is semi-officially ending is likely an admission that DeMonaco just never really knew where to take things and so instead did took his baby for a spin in some abandoned parking lot, ripping donuts until it just wasn’t fun anymore. And The Forever Purge is proof of that fact. If Zack Synder can set a heist movie during a zombie outbreak why can’t DeMonaco? Or literally do anything other than, to quote Die Antwoord: murder, murder, murder / kill, kill, kill. It’s just same purge, different day.

Ultimately this fifth entry, directed without much personality to call its own by Everardo Gout, intends to reveal a franchise where the lines between fiction and reality have become uncomfortably blurred. Or so DeMonaco posits. Much of the violence and political blatantness of the series is just going through the motions at this point though. A nihilistic, maximalist mirror of our societal woes. And yet, it’s still a decently entertaining little slice of action-horror. It’s just watchable enough, though it could – and should – be so much more.

A night of murder and mayhem stretching ad infinitum is a horrifying prospect. Perhaps so too was the thought of stretching Purge movies out ad infinitum. As the series lays down to rest, perhaps it is time to purify. Let the series die out. Get some new talent involved. Revive. There’s a great movie in this concept somewhere. It’s just yet to be made. Maybe it will stay that way. Maybe not. The Purge is dead. Long live the Purge.

CONCLUSION: The final installment of The Purge series ends on a middling note with ‘The Forever Purge’ displaying the series long-standing inability to craft a great story around its intriguing concepts. Things are much more blatantly political this time around, with creator James DeMonaco taking aim at the real-life branch of racist right-wing populism that’s steadily grown in America, and as lacking in subtlety (and good dialogue) as ever.