Sorry, but I simply can’t get on board with the hoopla surrounding Paul Thomas Anderson.
Sure, he’s made good movies (Boogie Nights and Inherent Vice). Hell, he’s made great movies (The Master and There Will Be Blood). But he’s also got a habit of making films that are deeply fractured and fatally self-indulgent, such as the pretentious Magnolia and the how-the-nine-hells-did-this-get-greenlit Licorice Pizza. In any case, I’ve yet to see a movie from Anderson that I ever felt compelled to revisit or even remember. Even with his great movies — especially with his great movies — once was enough.
Yet Anderson maintains a sterling reputation as an auteur, even after the disjointed plot, onanistic nostalgia, and fatally wrong-headed central romance brought Licorice Pizza to a crashing failure. So you’ll forgive me if I was skeptical about the overwhelming hype that surrounded One Battle After Another immediately after release. Color me shocked to discover that Anderson made his best film in ages, precisely because he made something that reflects the sociopolitical climate of the present instead of leaning on nostalgia for the umpteenth time.
Right up front, you should know that there is a lot going on here. The film is no less than 162 minutes long, and each half-hour in itself has enough material to sustain a feature-length picture. The sheer length and density of this picture makes it borderline impossible to try and recap — certainly not without a lot of drastic oversimplification — but I’m going to try my best.
In a broad sense, what we’ve got here is a conflict between two opposing sides. On one side is the Christmas Adventurers Club, a secret society of Christian white supremacists with vast wealth and political leverage. On the other side is the French 75, a far-left collective of anti-capitalist revolutionary terrorists.
We open with Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), a maverick running with the French 75. Long story short, she eventually falls in love with French 75 explosives expert Pat Calhoun alias Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and gives birth to his child (Charlene alias Willa Ferguson, played by Chase Infiniti). Alas, Perfidia is too much of a firebrand to settle down into motherhood, and keeps on fighting a war that’s so much bigger than any one person or family.
Trouble is, that turns out to be a load of shit. After Perfidia gets arrested, she shows her true self-interested colors and sells out her comrades in the French 75. Aside from a rare handful that safely disappear, pretty much all of Perfidia’s comrades are killed or arrested. Even better, shortly after Perfidia herself is taken into witness protection, she slips her leash and escapes to places unknown.
Luckily, Pat and his infant daughter find safe haven in Baktan Cross, a small middle-of-nowhere rural town with a reputation as a “sanctuary city.” Sixteen years later, Willa has grown into a headstrong young woman while Bob has grown rusty after so many decades of liquor and pot destroying his brain. Oh, and he’s obsessively paranoid about his revolutionary past catching up with him and his daughter, which doesn’t exactly blend well with the marijuana.
Enter Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), who rose through the ranks and achieved many special commendations after he arrested Perfidia, acted on her intel, and spent the past several years killing or capturing the French 75. And he’s doing all of this because he’s desperately trying to get into the Christmas Adventurers Club. There’s just one problem: Willa, who might actually be Lockjaw’s biological daughter.
Yes, Lockjaw and Perfidia crossed paths while she was with Pat. It’s a long, ugly, psychotic story I don’t want to try and discuss any further.
The bottom line is that Lockjaw may or may not have a biracial daughter running around while he’s applying for membership into the freaking Aryan Illuminati. So when Willa’s existence and whereabouts become common knowledge (another long story), everyone goes chasing after her to suit their own agendas. Hilarity ensues.
It’s worth pointing out that through most of the film, the French 75 and the Christmas Adventurers are aptly portrayed as two sides of the same coin. In point of fact, it’s almost like the filmmakers take their respective ideas and causes more seriously than the characters themselves do. It’s shown plenty of times that these are very real issues with very real consequences and very real lives at stake. Yet the characters who act and fight for those ideals — on both sides — are repeatedly shown to be childish assholes playing with secret codes and elaborate hideouts and flashy explosions and fancy gadgets. Oh, and guns, of course. Can’t forget the guns.
Nobody embodies this duality quite like Lockjaw and Perfidia. One abandons her high-and-mighty morals, her storied revolutionary lineage, and literally everything else she holds dear just as soon as she can sell it all out to stay out of prison. As for Lockjaw, he requisitions pretty much the entire U.S. military to turn a rural town inside out, supposedly to lock up “illegals” and drug dealers. But in fact, all of that is a flimsy excuse to cover-up the only thing he really cares about: The biracial daughter that he may have accidentally sired when he gave into his own sick fetishes and fucked a terrorist he was sworn to arrest. I can’t possibly stress enough that Lockjaw doesn’t give a fuck about protecting the nation or upholding the law, he’s only interested in whatever benefits and/or sexually satisfies him.
For all their talk about loyalty to their cause and comrades, Perfidia and Lockjaw are both are only out for their egos and whatever they need in the moment. That said, at least Perfidia eventually extends some slight gesture to show a measure of regret. Compare that to Lockjaw, a strong contender for the most despicably psychotic, unspeakably depraved, clinically insane, irredeemably evil shitheel I’ve ever seen on film. I’d put him in the same class as Dennis Hopper’s character in Blue Velvet, he’s that fucking bad. Perfidia has her moments of charm and sincerity, but literally every single godforsaken thing about Lockjaw is a blight on humanity.
Then there’s the matter of Bob, who further highlights the absurdity of the skullduggery. Here’s a guy who’s stoned out of his mind and running around in his bathrobe. He’s two decades out of shape and out of practice, and it’s not like he was all that great as a field agent to begin with. He’s clueless, lost and trapped in a situation that’s only getting deadlier, he’s desperate for help in finding his daughter… and all he can do is yell and scream as he’s either getting carried around by people who actually know what they’re doing, or getting denied help because he can’t remember every last dot and dash of the elaborate passwords.
It’s tempting to call Bob the comedic “straight man”, but that’s really more Willa’s job. And the film deserves major kudos for its portrayal of a 16-year-old girl who keeps a level head, remembers her training, and always does the best anyone could reasonably expect no matter how bad the circumstances get. By contrast, Willa is more or less what Bob only thinks he is. And that contrast between expectations and reality, against the greater contrast of Bob’s neurotic anxiety against everyone’s absurd certainty, is surprisingly funny.
Which brings us to Benicio del Toro, who’s having one hell of a year in redeeming filmmakers between this and The Phoenician Scheme. He plays Sergio St. Carlos, a local martial arts instructor. In fact, Willa is apparently one of his star pupils. More importantly, Sergio runs a massive “underground railroad”, providing undocumented migrants and their children with shelter and secrecy. Put simply, Sergio and his operation are the film’s platonic ideal. Unlike Perfidia or Lockjaw, Sergio is a man who puts his money where his mouth is and turns out to be every bit as competent as warranted by his ego and reputation. Precisely because he sincerely cares more about the cause than he does about his own ego and reputation.
I might add that while the French 75 is introduced staging a prison break to free captured migrants, that caper is the outlier. Most of the time (and even during that particular time), they’re more concerned with waving guns around and blowing shit up. And of course the Christmas Adventurers are transparently evil bastards who couldn’t care less about anyone who doesn’t look or think like them. Compare the both of them to Sergio’s underground operation, who deal directly, intimately, and on a long-term basis with the very people they’re helping. This doesn’t feel like overgrown children playing Spy versus Spy, this feels like they’re making a direct impact in a way that the other two don’t.
As for the miscellaneous cast members, Regina King serves admirably well as one of the rare few French 75 members who lives long enough to be of use to Willa. I was amused to see Wood Harris — freaking Avon Barksdale himself! — as another French 75 member. Even better, Alana Haim gets a brief appearance in the French 75. Haim’s demonstration of talent was a rare highlight of Licorice Pizza (ditto Cooper Hoffman, glad to see his career took off elsewhere) and Anderson nicely elevated a minor background role by giving her another shot.
Don’t overlook Tony Goldwyn, who puts his villainous chops to good use in selling the absurdly mundane evil of the Christmas Adventurers. Likewise, Erik Schweig deserves a ton of credit in the role of a bounty hunter — it’s a minor character, but his face-turn would’ve broken the whole damn plot if Schweig hadn’t sold it so hard.
While the satirical comedy is the film’s highlight, we can’t overlook the action and suspense. The cat-and-mouse chases are fantastic fun as we discover in real-time how competent the characters really are and which allies turn up where. All of this culminates in the climax, which reinvents the car chase in a way that’s flat-out genius.
One Battle After Another is certainly an undertaking. It’s a long film with a lot to take in, and a lot to say about what it takes to change the world and who would be crazy enough to try. That said, any film that can keep me glued to the screen for over 160 minutes is most likely looking forward to a positive write-up.
I know a lot of filmgoers will be tempted to wait for home video so they can enjoy the film at their own pace. That’s valid, but I would strongly recommend a big screen viewing. These are larger-than-life characters exploring big ideas on an epic canvas, all worthy of a viewing on the big screen. Plus, those breathtaking scenic vistas in the third act and that climactic car chase should be enjoyed on the biggest screen possible.
It’s funny, exciting, superbly acted, and remarkably clever. Damn good cinema. Definitely check it out.