Leonardo DiCaprio in the thriller One Battle After Another. Photos: Warner Bros. Pictures
One Battle After Another is a damn good movie. So good that it has critics lining up to declare it the best movie, not just of this year, but of the decade. Even after my second viewing, I’m not willing to go that far in my praise, but I can understand the excitement. In an era of endless franchises, sequels and reboots, an original film from a celebrated director with a stellar cast is bound to feel like a breath of fresh air.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson has been a darling of the critics since he emerged on the scene in the mid-to-late 90s and leading man Leonardo DiCaprio has been one of Hollywood’s most recognisable movie stars since around the same time.
Interestingly enough, Anderson had wanted to cast DiCaprio in his second film Boogie Nights (1997) but the role eventually went to Mark Wahlberg after DiCaprio turned it down. That might sound like a historic fumble until you realise the reason he turned it down was to take a role in another little film called Titanic (1997).
Safe to say, Dicaprio doesn’t regret the decision but, nearly 30 years later the director-actor combo have finally got the chance to work together, and on Anderson’s 10th film, no less. It’s hard not to feel like everything worked out as it was supposed to because the film they’ve brought to life is a thrilling experience.
Inspired by the 1990 Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland, One Battle After Another revolves around members of a leftist revolutionary group called the French 75. The film begins at the height of the group’s activities freeing detained migrants from detention centres and bombing politicians’ offices, banks and power stations.
“Ghetto” Pat Calhoun (DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) are members of the group who become romantically involved. Their romance becomes a love triangle after Commander Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn) coerces Hills into a sexual relationship. This leads to the birth of baby girl Charlene (Chase Infiniti) whose paternity later becomes a contentious matter.
Hills is ultimately captured by the police and turns state witness against her comrades to avoid jail time only to flee the country and disappear. Many French 75 members are either hunted down and murdered by the authorities or go into hiding. Pat manages to escape with Charlene to the sanctuary city of Baktan Cross where they assume the new identities of Bob and Willa Ferguson.
This all takes place in just the first 30 minutes of Anderson’s propulsive film. We flash forward 16 years and while Bob has become a paranoid drug addict to cope with the unprocessed trauma of his past, his daughter Willa has grown into a self-reliant and spirited teenager.
Unfortunately, the past is about to rear its ugly head as Steven Lockjaw, now a colonel, hunts them down to cover up his secret interracial relationship. He’s eager to tie up any loose ends which mightthreaten his admission into a white supremacist secret society called the Christmas Adventurers Club.
Once Lockjaw abuses his power to bring the weight of the American military machinery into Baktan Cross, the film hits the accelerator and doesn’t let up until the denouement. That’s the best thing about One Battle After Another — the momentum of the narrative makes its running time of two hours and 42 minutes go by surprisingly quickly. That and the performances.
DiCaprio is the lead but he’s by no means a hero. In his French 75 days he was a bomb expert — hence the nickname “Rocket Man” — responsible for building and detonating the group’s explosives. But now he’s so burnt out, high and paranoid that he spends most of the film being more of a nuisance than a help. Imagine if The Dude from The Big Lebowski had suddenly been dropped into an action thriller.
Meanwhile, Penn plays one of the most detestable onscreen villains I’ve seen in quite some time, a military man with a stick up his ass and delusions of grandeur. He’s a bizarre cross between Vince McMahon and Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. Despite being a virulent racist, he fetishes black women and coerces Hills into a sexual relationship, claiming to love her, in perhaps the film’s most disturbing storyline.
His interaction with his supposed daughter Willa who he calls a “half-breed” is no less uncomfortable. The young Infiniti deserves a special mention for her performance as Willa in what is only her second role after last year’s series Presumed Innocent. She has arguably the most interesting character arc of the film as whatever childhood innocence she had been able to maintain under the circumstances is thoroughly tested through the course of this film.
Another well-deserved shoutout goes to Benecio Del Toro who plays Sergio St. Carlos, Willa’s karate sensei and a community leader who’s helping migrant families to cross the border — “a Latino Harriet Tubman situation”, as he describes it.
He’s not on screen for long but Del Toro delivers the kind of memorable limited performance that in any other situation might have earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but that will probably go to Penn. Carlos is cool, calm and collected, even as the streets erupt into violent clashes between protesters and soldiers and his own home is being raided.
Teyana Taylor in One Battle After Another.
“We’ve been laid siege for hundreds of years,” he calmly says in the midst of the chaos, providing a perfect contrast to Bob who is constantly jittery and bumbling.
That’s another thing about this movie — it’s hilarious. Despite the harrowing events, it manages to blend in some great comedic moments. The best of these might be the long back-and-forth Bob has with a French 75 phone operator who refuses to give him any information on the whereabouts of his daughter until he provides the secret codes to confirm his identity. The only problem is Bob has long since forgotten these codes in his drug-infused stupor.
Regina Hall (Deandre) also deserves a special shoutout for a small but consequential role as another French 75 member. But the most important role in this film, after DiCaprio’s, is Taylor’s because, despite being absent for most of its running time, her character lays the groundwork for the entire narrative. Perfidia Beverly Hills is fierce, determined and self-possessed.
She’s the real powder keg that gives the first 30 minutes of this film its explosive energy but the way her narrative is left hanging leaves serious unanswered questions about her motivations and character. Nonetheless, Teyana’s performance proves that, despite still being known primarily for her work as a musician, she has some serious dramatic chops.
One Battle After Another doesn’t spend a great deal of time exploring the French 75’s political ideals but their activities and the phrase Hills yells early in the film: “Free borders. Free choices. Free from fear!” tells us a lot. That is a timely message as this year we’ve seen mass protests in the US against the widespread ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids and deportation efforts that have unfairly targeted many US citizens of colour.
At its heart, One Battle Another is a film about the bond between a father and daughter and what kind of world one generation wants to leave for the one that comes after it. I came away with the feeling that the title is a nod to the idea that creating a better world is always going to involve some level of struggle and that one needs to remain prepared to keep fighting yet somehow find joy in the midst of that fight. It’s a great film. See it in a cinema if you can.