There are only two ways this American experiment could end: one hegemony under the thought police or anarchy. Director Paul Thomas Anderson chose to go with the second option in his newest film, “One Battle After Another.” Revolution in this film means explosions, gunfights, armed robbery, murder and something along the lines of a “Latino Harriet Tubman situation.”
Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Bob Ferguson, a far-left revolutionary who is on the run from the United States government after his revolutionary group, the “French 75,” becomes compromised. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn) is the army envoy charged with finding Bob and his fiery daughter Willa Ferguson (Chase Infiniti).
Most importantly, “One Battle After Another” is fun. It is the kind of fun that you hear people in press conferences refer to when they want to remind you why movies are important (the over-familiar story of “losing yourself in the screen”). Part of the reason the two-hour and 50-minute runtime feels like 30 minutes is that the movie is devoid of convention.
Anderson’s newest release reminds you what it feels like to not trust a director. You can trust them to deliver an engaging experience, but nothing in the story can be predicted or recognized as a cliche. You are forced to hand yourself over to the storyteller. This can be scary at first because what is more terrifying than being bored?
When Lockjaw’s fetishization of Black women leads him to the door of Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), the door doesn’t open after the second knock, as she walks out reluctantly from her house. That would have been a cliche. Instead, the soldier has to get a battering ram from the car and force open the door to her house.
The movie opens with the French 75 reverse-raiding the Otay Mesa Detention Center while attempting to free illegal immigrants from its grounds. Needless to say, Anderson’s movie is tackling the moment. This moment.
His true genius is in including cultural markers without any judgment. DiCaprio hits the vape, and he walks into Sensei Sergio’s (Benicio del Toro) dojo as the latter reclines in a gaming chair. There is a non-binary character in this movie, whom the hardened military man interrogating them does not seem to notice. At one point, a character uses a slur against those with intellectual disabilities, and it appears as the momentary lapse of judgement of a character losing themselves in frustration rather than a greater commentary on what can or cannot be said.
In fact, any potential commentary — with its antagonists basically being U.S enforcement agencies and white supremacist occult groups — is lost in the movie’s thrilling action. It all comes down to a cat-and-mouse story, which is so effective that the larger setting of an overreaching government is forgotten in favor of gripping action and interesting characters. This is an integral part of all good moral art, to prioritize its existence as art first in order to surpass the defenses of the mind and change the viewer from within.
Aside from it being an action movie, “One Battle After Another” boasts rich characters and even richer performances. Anderson has a talent (at this point, a very well-established talent) for drawing flawed characters onto the screen, much in the manner of Sidney Lumet or Mike Leigh. Actors have a lot to work with in an Anderson movie.
Taylor projects power and great seduction in her performance. Penn portrays his character as rigid, stiff, disciplined and fascistic, with a brilliant facial tic that tells us there is something darker within him. It is his sexual fascination with Black women, which, in a story of opposing races, is normal, looking back no further than Shakespeare’s “Othello.” Benicio Del Toro brings in the few-words-high-quirkiness method that made him so attractive to Wes Anderson, and brings forth the meditative calm of a samurai in his role as a Karate Sensei. He walks the story through chapters named after Samurai values: “No Fear,” “Fury,” “Courage,” etc. He shows the viewers what qualities it would take to lead an effective anarchical rebellion.
The film features some fantastic set pieces, including a huge ICE raid and a car chase comparable only to Hitchcock’s “Vertigo.” All of these are propelled forward with increasing tension by Johny Greenwood’s enthralling jazzy piano score. The ending is unambiguous, which was quite surprising for an Anderson film, and hopeful. Although it struck me as off in the beginning, hope is a good way to end a story revolving around the now. Whatever your politics may be, watch it to be inspired and for the thrill of watching real filmmaking at work.