One Battle After Another Review
Propulsive, hilarious, action-packed cinema that feels all too speedy for its whopping runtime.
Bob (Leonardo Di Caprio), an explosives expert, proudly supports the leader of a revolutionary group, Perfidia (Teyana Taylor) as both her lover and her firepower. But after they have a child together, Perfidia winds up being nabbed, and goes to ground, with Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn) using her for his own gains. Years later, and a number of arrests and assassinations of the revolutionary group members later, Lockjaw is closing in on Bob and his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti). As he hits the town they are staying at, some of the gone-to-ground revolutionary members rescue Willa and spirit her away, while Bob teams up with Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio Del Toro) to flee. Now alone, Bob must find his way back to Willa, before Lockjaw can get to her.
One Battle After Another is truly a masterpiece, but perhaps not in the way that such a word might convey. This is no high-brow, pretentious, inaccessible piece. This is a mile-a-minute, barrel of laughs, action packed adventure that will have you laughing and cheering throughout.
As the lead and the drug-fried pyrotechnics expert Bob, Leo is on truly fine form here. He is able to convey all of the pathos and emotionality he needs (his work taking care of his baby daughter is so beautiful and tender in the small moments), but also generate the big-belly laughs when needed. His rants on the phone trying to remember his password are truly hilarious.
The rest of the cast is great as well, but outside of Leo the real standout is Sean Penn as Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw. Penn’s peacocking performance is transformative, from the makeup in the end, to the glaring eyes in the beginning, and of course throughout the soon to be iconic walk of the character.
The film has quite a lengthy pre-amble before reaching present day, but the somewhat lopsided structure makes for a piece that never loses momentum. The topical elements feel relevant to today, despite PTA apparently developing the script for 20 years, and the ways in which the Christmas cult and the revolutionaries are depicted is both compelling viewing, and ultimately prescient. The action towards the end is tremendous, and the final car chase is one of the all time great uses of hills.
One Battle After Another is the sort of movie that is perhaps tough to sell to non-cinephiles as a must-see. It’s not too showy, probably not the sort of film that screams ‘Oscar-bait’, and also straddles a curious divide between action and comedy. But this is a movie that needs to be seen in cinema, on the biggest screen possible, because it is a mammoth, gorgeous, compelling undertaking of a film, and one that is truly and utterly enjoyable.
