Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) is the leader of militant revolutionary group "The French 75" and her partner Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the team explosive expert. The movie opens with the self-styled freedom fighters breaking a bunch of detained immigrants out of a holding camp. This brings them into the crosshairs of Colonel Stephen J. Lockjaw who begins pursuing the group. After being arrested, Perfidia disappears, leaving Pat to raise their baby daughter in hiding. We then jump forward sixteen years to Pat, now a paranoid stoner, trying to deal with teenage daughter Charlene (Chase Infiniti) who is as much his keeper as he is hers. Meanwhile, Lockjaw is given the opportunity to join a ridiculous but powerful white supremest group called "The Christmas Adventure Club", reigniting his interest in former members of The French 75 and setting in motion a chain of events that leaves Charlene on the run and Pat desperately trying to catch up to her.
With themes of immigration, race, rebellion and power structures, One Battle After Another feels very prescient. Despite this, it is, as Paul Thomas Anderson rightly attests, not really rooted in current American politics. The ideas it deals with have been intrinsic to the United States since day one and are merely updated for modern audiences in the way great storytellers have been doing for centuries. Even the time jump within the film isn't there to show any change in the nation, but just to give distance and age to the characters. At its core, this is a film about shifting priorities and the actions of your youth haunting you for the rest of your life. It is also about family, moving on and the eternal hope that the next generation can do things better. With all the texture and a near three hour runtime you may think the film would feel bloated or sluggish, but a rocket-propelled narrative ensures there is zero time for boredom and all character development is done on the move. Calling it an action movie may conjure up ideas of explosions and set pieces that it doesn't have, but it's certainly a "doing" movie. We have two stories running side by side as Charlene attempts to escape Lockjaw and Pat tries to catch up to both of them. The fact that one character ends up having far less agency over the story may frustrate some, but it fits the story perfectly and the dual narrative will leave you wondering where the time went. In the hands of Paul Tomas Anderson and cinematographer Micheal Bauman, a slow car pursuit through the hills is a white knuckle adrenalin rush.
DiCaprio turns in one of his best performances in years as lovably determined buffoon Pat. From John Wick to Nobody, recent cinema is littered with everymen the bad guy shouldn't have messed with. Guys trying to live a low key life who are, under the surface, killer bad asses. Pat is the antithesis of this archetype. He is regarded as a war hero by his fellow revolutionaries, but if he ever had any combat skills other than making rudimentary explosives, they are long lost in a fog of weed, and the fact he doesn't even remember the many secret passwords of his colleagues leads to a hilariously frustrated telephone conversation. None of that is going to stop him getting his dressing gown on and start jumping across rooftops and getting into shoots outs in order to get his daughter back. In many ways, he is the ultimate father; rushing round in a panic, completely out of his depth and mostly ineffectual, but showing up again and again for his kid no matter how many licks he takes.
Sean Penn is also at the top of his game as Colonel Lockjaw, a man who struts around like he literally has a stick up his ass. He is part cartoonish villain, and not somebody you will sympathise with, but he also a fairly tragic character. Like most hard right crusaders he is a man whose own humiliations and insecurities are being manipulated to further the cause of others and he is prepared to stomp over anyone and anything in a desperate attempt to appease people who will never really respect him. Penn toes the line brilliantly between portraying him as terrifying and a complete joke.
There are a plethora of fantastic performances in the smaller roles as well. Highlights include Teyana Taylor exuding charisma as the sexy and fanatical French 75 leader and Benicio Del Toro brings a focused calm as a karate sensei who is the nominal protector of the local immigrant population and Pat's most useful ally. Even amongst such talent though, the revelation is Chase Infiniti. With only one prior TV credit to her name, she has, probably, the most important role in the film and hits every note as Charlene, who goes on the biggest journey of all the characters and is the movie's anchor. A stratospheric career surely awaits.
One Battle After Another has heart, insight, action, and a sense of humour. The way it tells its story, and the mirror it holds up, might put some off, but it's an incredibly entertaining and satisfying blitz of a movie and a fascinating look at modern America.
9 Junglepussies out of 10.
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