ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER Is A Brilliant, Rip-Roaring Tour De Force That Grabs You From The Jump And Doesn't Let Go
(Review contains minor spoilers.)
The year’s most anticipated and best-reviewed movie, director Paul Thomas Anderson’s ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, goes wide tomorrow. Unsurprisingly, the gifted auteur delivers the goods yet again in his tenth feature film. It’s a rollicking, nerve-racking, and hilarious chase movie that hits the ground running and doesn’t let up over the next two-and-a-half-hours, leaving viewers slack-jawed and mesmerized.
Leonardo DiCaprio stars as bomb-building revolutionary Ghetto Pat, a member of the underground group known as the French 75 and the movie opens with scenes of him, his incorrigibly horny peer and sometime partner Perfidia Beverly Hills (a terrific Teyana Taylor), and their crew pulling off a series of bombings before setting their sights on a detention facility with the aim of freeing the folks being held there.
During this raid, Perfidia happens upon the rooster-haired Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn) and orders him to take an atypical action that’s as stunning as it is funny. While doing so, she seemingly unlocks a sexually devious part of the deranged military man’s id that sets the, um, battle lines and kicks the story into high gear.
In short order, Perfidia gives birth to bi-racial daughter Charlene, then walks out on her and Ghetto Pat to go back to the cause, and a crackdown on the French 75 delivers a debilitating blow to its numbers and hierarchy. So the mad bomber and the infant hit the road with new identities to live off the grid and under the radar.
The film then jumps ahead about 15 or 16 years where a perpetually stoned “Bob Ferguson” is raising his daughter “Willa” (Chase Infiniti) in a secluded pad in the woods of a small California town. Meanwhile, Lockjaw is seeking membership in a secretive and supremely racist society but hits a snag when higher-ups get wind of a rumor that he may not be so pure. So the lunatic, utilizing men under his command, sets his sights on an old adversary and the chase is on.
But it’s just one of many chases that ensues over the course of the film. And it’s in these scenes that PTA shows an incredibly deft hand at a genre he had scarcely dipped his toes in before: the action movie. The director gives us two of the best chase scenes in recent cinematic history—one on foot and one filmed brilliantly on blacktop that makes filmgoers feel like they’re on a roller coaster.
However, OBAA can hardly be described as just an action movie. It finished filming in the summer of 2024 but given the various timely storylines, it feels like it finished filming on September 24 (yesterday). There’s much to dig into as the flick has more themes than a sorority social calendar. And, given the current state of the union, I suspect there will be ample, misguided discourse soon from people who just can’t just take it as the piece of art that it is. But PTA takes no sides, instead he shows the depravity and cowardice of both members of the government and those who hate the government.
His stellar work here, as both writer and director, puts him on par with another genius director who seamlessly moved among genres during an insanely prolific career—Stanley Kubrick.
As the seething, unhinged, and hypocritical Lockjaw, Penn delivers a riveting performance that’s alternately fearsome and funny. This is the erstwhile Spicoli’s best work since MYSTIC RIVER and he is an absolute lock for a Best Supporting Actor nomination (I know he won Best Actor for MILK but it’s a joke that the trophy didn’t go to Mickey Rourke for his career-best turn as Randy the Ram in THE WRESTLER).
Benicio Del Toro shows up as still-active revolutionary/karate sensei Sergio St. Carlos and provides laid-back humor during a chaotic sequence as well as his typically stellar work.
Regina Hall is fantastic as a French 75 member who appears out of nowhere to lend a hand and turns in arguably the best work of her long career.
But Infiniti is the revelation of the film. In her first movie, the Indiana native takes command of the screen every time she appears, thanks to her steely demeanor, simmering rage, angry physicality, and tremendous acting. I’d be shocked if she doesn’t get an Oscar nomination.
As for Leo, this is probably the funniest performance he’s ever had, which is ironic considering the heavy subject matter. Like Denzel, Clint, and Jack, DiCaprio is in that acting stratosphere where it’s sometimes tough to separate an iconic superstar from his role and often seems like he’s just playing a slightly different version of previous roles. Yet Leo absolutely shines here as the goofball washed-up stoner on the run. His scenes with the underground faction’s “customer service representative” provide the biggest laughs of the film. But he also brings the gravitas when required. Another Best Actor nom feels like a lock.
PTA has delivered a tremendous and wildly entertaining film very much of the current times but without any preaching or finger-wagging. Like NETWORK, it homes in with laser focus on fucked-up stuff that goes on in America. Ideally, ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER will lack the spot-on prescience of the 1976 masterpiece.