Review: One Battle After Another

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

Paul Thomas Anderson is not only a great filmmaker, but also seemingly a magician: He somehow convinced a major movie studio (Warner Bros.) to fund a $150 million Thomas Pynchon adaptation that involves modern revolutionaries battling a fascist U.S. government in which a select group of racist white men belong to a Santa Claus-worshipping cult.

On the one hand, the plot of "One Battle After Another," based somewhat on Pynchon's "Vineland," might sound presciently bleak with its ICE detention centers, violent government-led raids on sanctuary cities, and white supremacists in high positions, but the picture is also hopeful in its depiction of what could be our way through this madness.

Anderson's 21st century films have mostly dwelt in the past and told stories about the birth of capitalism ("There Will Be Blood"), post WWII America and Britain ("The Master" and "Phantom Thread"), Hollywood against the backdrop of the 1970s oil crisis ("Licorice Pizza"), and the lost dream of the 1960s counterculture ("Inherent Vice"). Only one other film - 2002's "Punch Drunk Love" - has been set in the current century.

That being said, I cannot think of any other film that captures our present moment of anxiety better than this one. The film's title is spoken at one point in the picture regarding a specific action taken by the French 75, the revolutionary group that features many of the film's lead characters, but it also speaks to the moment we're living in - keeping alive the dream of a country that favors freedom of speech and expression literally requires one battle after another.

The film opens with a tense mission in which the French 75 infiltrates an ICE detention center and frees its captives. Perfidia Beverly Hills (a fierce Teyana Taylor) takes Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn, whose monster of a character provokes much laughter due to his utter humorlessness) captive and sexually humiliates him, while her paramour, "Ghetto Pat" (Leonardo DiCaprio), sets off bombs. Other members of the group are portrayed by Wood Harris, Alana Haim, Regina Hall, and Shayna McHayle.

But when Perfidia is busted by Lockjaw, she rats out her fellow 75'ers, leaving Pat and her newborn daughter to go underground. Some 16 years later, the father and daughter are living as Bob and Willa Ferguson in the fictional California town of Baktan Cross. Willa takes karate lessons from Sensei (Benicio Del Toro), a smooth revolutionary who helps to smuggle illegal immigrants, while Bob is mostly stoned out of his gourd. He still believes in the revolution, but has become paranoid and somewhat useless.

However, Lockjaw finds himself moving up the ranks of the military and is invited to join an elite cabal of white supremacists known as the Christmas Adventurers Club. To be inducted, however, he must wipe clean his past, which includes his coerced liaison with Perfidia. Although she has been missing for years, Lockjaw tracks down some of the former French 75 members and uses them to try to get close to Bob and Willa. During one harrowing scene, Hall's Deandra helps Willa to flee a high school dance, while Bob is amusingly left fumbling through phone calls in which he has forgotten the requisite revolution passwords.

From this point on, "One Battle After Another" becomes a relentlessly propulsive chase movie in which Bob and Willa (newcomer Chase Infiniti), now separated, must stay one step ahead of Lockjaw and his goons. Willa and Deandra make their way to a desert enclave of revolutionary nuns, while Bob hides out with Sensei, who leads an escape of Latino immigrants as jack-booted ICE types attack their sanctuary city. There's an incredibly shot sequence in which Bob and a group of skateboarding associates of Sensei make a run for it.

The film's final scenes involve a series of car chases that culminate with a spellbinding pursuit along Borrego Springs' blind humps of Highway 78 that recalls the 1971 cult classic "Vanishing Point." At this point, the paranoid stoner comedy and revolutionary thriller modes of the picture seamlessly transition into a breathless action film. This is a movie that juggles numerous tones and set pieces of various genres, all deftly.

It is also a film chock full of superb performances, from supporting roles that pack a punch such as Taylor, Hall, or Del Toro to remarkable leading turns - DiCaprio expertly juggles hilarity with pathos as the burnout father whose dedication to the revolution often butts heads with his ability to protect his daughter, while Penn gives what must be his most frightening portrayal. Also, Infiniti is a real find.

"We've been laid siege for hundreds of years," Del Toro's Sensei calmly remarks during one of the film's tenser moments regarding how communities of color have long struggled against hateful forces in the United States. In the context of this movie and the country in which we live, it has indeed been one battle after another to prevent those forces from overpowering the struggle for liberty. 

Anderson's incredible film is a clarion call for keeping up the fight in the face of overwhelming odds, a concept that really hits home at the moment. The film's defiant final scene of multi-generational determination powerfully drives home the old adage that the "only way out is through." This is unquestionably the movie for this moment - and a great one at that.