In a frenetic, unrelenting pace, Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another begins with the French 75, an armed and well organized Leftist group penetrating an immigration detention center and freeing immigrants near a dusty southern Californian border. Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a resident bomb maker of the group, who is romantically involved with Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), an outspoken member of the group. They are seen taking advantage of a tense cat-and-mouse situation with the Feds for a lustful quickie at a pit stop. During many such activities - targeting detention centers, government facilities and bank jobs, French 75 is pursued by Col. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), a strong army man who has ambitions to climb up to the big boys club one day. His relentless pursuit pays off, and most of the members of the group are either dead, apprehended or went into hiding. This is the mid 2000s.
Fast forward to present-ish. Bob is a paranoid dad of Willa/Charlene (Chase Infiniti), a 17-year old high schooler. The two have been living in a remote cabin. For Bob, now a middle aged fugitive, after years of living in shadows looking over his shoulder, has become a couch potato with drugs and alcohol, as his strict regimen slackened.
In Lockjaw's pursuit of joining the elite white supremacist cabal named the Christmas Adventurer's Club(!), he has to prove that he is the purist Aryan stock, and has no dealings with any inferior race. So he tracks down Willa who might be the love-child of his and Perfidia's to eliminate any evidence of his impurity. So begins the Searchers like adventure of fumbling, middle aged Bob, with the help of a zen-like local karate instructor, Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio Del Toro).
One Battle After Another is a fantasy, based on Thomas Pynchon's Vineland, which was published in 1990 in the throes of the Bush Sr. regime. If anything, it shows that nothing much has changed- the kidnapping and deportation of the undocumented and overarching racism of the country. I say fantasy because as much as I wish that there is a well connected and well equipped underground network of leftist resistance going on in the age of tiktok, but there isn't. I'm sure it's a fantasy cooked up by right-wing conspiracy nuts also.
Narratively speaking, you can't not fall for One Battle After Another. With how it is put together: from how it was shot in Vistavision, accentuating the vista of American Southwest and heart pounding car chase sequences, aided by Jonny Greenwood's marvelous score, to to its stellar cast- DiCaprio has never been better as a burnt out radical, Sean Penn literally eschews his namesake comic book villain role with relish, Del Toro's hilariously deadpan but grounded zen master and the newcomer Infiniti with her clear eyed, whip smart Gen Z stand-in. The film is a great fun as it unfolds in satisfying ways - bad guys get their comeuppances, dad and daughter reunite, and a young black woman's empowerment fulfilled.
Anderson deals with the contemporary world for the first time since Punch Drunk Love and show that the world is still in the grips of the old white men ways - the gungho military homophobic dickheads, sexual stereotypes that propelled the whole narrative, fumbling at proper pronouns and the white supremacy deep state. But relishing in showing it which is meant to be comic relief, the scenes tend to be super awkward and downright Tarantino-foot-fetish creepy - the camera gliding over Perfidia's butt over and over, Lockjaw's huge boner, and an uninspired gay joke. And it shows Anderson's awkward middle aged white man side when it comes to dealing with race.
But you gotta admit, it is refreshing to see a mainstream American film hell bent on showing the resistance side of things that tells you the kids are all right, even if it's from an old white man.
