The Forever Purge, A Chilling Riveting Reminder Of Migrant phobia

The Forever Purge

Rating: *** ½

The Forever Purge Movie Review: This is it! The ultimate fear  if migrantphobia(to coin a term) given the kind of  chilling  immediacy  that  makes every second of  the  viewing experience nailbitingly urgent.

I confess I had not seen  any of the earlier films in the ‘Purge’ series.This one stands tall as a one-off  experience. It  just knocks your  socks off.Its  terrifying,pacy, heart-in-the-mouth jaw-dropping dystopian and disquieting in its ominous message  about the growing intolerance that  has seeped into the American Dream.

 The  brilliantly-written screenplay imagines America in the not-too-distant future when the Government  gives its citizens the freedom to  ‘purge’ their country of outsiders  for just 24 hours. What  if after those 24 hours the urge to purge  continues  to surge  ?What if the state-sanctioned mayhem won’t stop?

Anarchy and bloodshed rule the chaotic  landscape, a blood-dimmed tide is loosed , as  writer James deMonaco(who has written all  the five Purge  films and directed the first three) visualizes  a land soaked in hatred and  bloodshed. The smartly brutish   screenplay zeroes in on a  farm owned by an American family where a Mexican couple Adele(Ana de la Reguera) and Juan(Tenoch Huerta)  join hands with the farmowners  to escape into Mexica.

 The  film is designed as showcase  of evaporating hostility  as the two  segregated  communities and races race towards relative safety.  Of course the stress is on manufacturing rapid  car chases and the stimulation of  a  nervous energy that serves the suspenseful  motivations of the script .

   If only the actors were less prone to act. These are  players who  want to get noticed  over the  dystopian din. They  secrete a  sexy swagger  in their desperate  escape.

To the film’s credit The Final Purge keeps the suspenseful spirit alive till thend. Even though the prologue clearly lets  us know who survives the purge urge , we are  nonetheless  agog as  to how   the fleeing  heroes will  fare at the end. Though not overt in its  repudiation of America’s anti-migration politics,   the  film is stoutly behind the migrants,deriving  a  kind of  arresting immediacy in the  survival game  that audiences won’t hesitate in embracing.

 There are plenty of shootouts  , enough to give the film the look of a John Wayne Western. The  work of  frenetic  execution  also conceals  an unannounced  chutzpah that  confers  on  the actors a passport to feral hijinks.Maybe  The Forever Purge  qualifies as  a fastpaced potboiler. No harm in  that, as  long as the message  doesn’t drown in the mayhem.It doesn’t . Mexico  never seemed more visitor-friendly.And American never more unwelcoming.