One Battle After Another

Sixteen years after being left by the love of his life, French 75 revolutionary Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio) spends his days smoking weed and trying to take care of their daughter Willa (newcomer Chase Infiniti), but when he and Perfidia's past foe, Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn), resurfaces and Willa disappears, Bob tries to rally himself to fight the power once again in "One Battle After Another."

Laura's Review: A-

Inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 'Vineland,' writer/director/producer Paul Thomas Anderson captures the zeitgeist, making his revolutionaries, both past and present, immigration activists who liberate detention centers and move immigrants through underground tunnels, much to the chagrin of Captain, later Colonel, Steven J. Lockjaw. The early part of the movie gives us the past history of Perfidia and the guy who adored her, then known as Rocketman as he set off distracting pyrotechnics while she led raids to free immigrants. But Lockjaw, who will later admit a sexual obsession with black women, also adores her, something she uses to her advantage. After Perfidia gives birth to Charlene, the French 75 rob a bank, she kills a security guard in the process and is caught while trying to escape on foot. Lockjaw gets her into witness protection in exchange for names, thinking he has set up a little love nest for himself, but finds nothing but a disdainful, profane note when he pays his first visit. Perfidia's skipped out to Mexico.

Now named Bob and Willa Ferguson, Rocketman and Charlene live in the sanctuary city of Baktan Cross where the sixteen year old is more parent than the dad, his drinking, drugging and failure to give his daughter her mother's full history (he's built her up as a revolutionary hero) makes her tend to consider his strict safety rules as paranoia. When she heads out to a high school dance, he embarrasses her in front of her friends, alarmed that they even know where they live, but at least she agrees to take the tracking device synced to his. When he gets word that Lockjaw and his goons are in town and Willa has disappeared, Bob cannot remember the answer to 'What time is it?' demanded by Comrade Josh (Dan Chariton, "Licorice Pizza") to gain access to his old network and when those same armed men bash down his door, the panicked Bob escapes through an underground tunnel and makes his way to Willa's karate school, begging for help from her Sensei, Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio Del Toro). DiCaprio's clueless panic and interrupted attempts to charge his cell phone versus Del Toro's cool-as-a-cucumber, methodical work evacuating immigrants while dealing with him is one of the film's comedic highlights, and when Sergio is advised later by his men that 'your guy fell off the roof and got arrested,' the Sensei has his own network to retrieve him.

Thomas Anderson keeps multiple balls in the air, also following Lockjaw and Willa's stories until they eventually unite. We've seen Lockjaw being invited into the Christmas Adventure Club, an elite secret and lethal group of White Supremacists, by Virgil Throckmorton (Tony Goldwyn), but the club denies access to those who have had interracial sexual relationships and he is hunting down Willa to destroy the 'evidence' if necessary. Meanwhile, Willa was taken from her dance by French 75's Deandra (Regina Hall), one of the revolutionaries who escaped Lockjaw's deadly purge after obtaining information from Perfidia years earlier. Deandra freaks out when Willa, who told her she had no cell phone, gets a call from one of her friends who is being questioned and intimidated, throwing it out of the car window on her way to hide the girl with the Sisters of the Stolen Beaver, weed growing nuns who aren't exactly thrilled to welcome the daughter of 'a rat,' but begin to train her, Infiniti seen in the same stance as Taylor years earlier firing an automatic weapon. Meanwhile, 'Hark, the Herald Angels Sing' introduces Tim Smith (John Hoogenakker), who joins a Christmas Adventure Club meeting where Roy More (Kevin Tighe) advises of an unconfirmed report that Lockjaw has a mixed race child and needs to 'be taken care of,' setting up a multi-leveled hunt.

Thomas Anderson's screenplay is smart, funny and thought provoking, a mix of action adventure, politics and absurdity.  Director of photography Michael Bauman excels during the film's climax, following Willa driving along one of those rolling roads which obscure what's ahead until a hill is crested, giving us a roller coaster sensation and Thomas Anderson the opportunity to stage quite a surprise, one which exhibits Willa's skill and smarts (as well as Andy Jurgensen's editing). Production designer Florencia Martin and the film's location scout define a myriad of locations from the type of immigration centers holding caged pens and space blankets to government facilities, safe houses, southwestern nunneries and the modest homes of revolutions and the grand manors of the Christmas Adventurer class. Costume designer Colleen Atwood, too, runs the gamut from military uniforms reflected in Perfidia's revolutionary wear to Bob's ratty bathrobe. "There Will Be Blood's" Jonny Greenwood uses jazzy hors and percussion, then gets romantic with French horns before turning to the plunking of a very insistent piano.

The cast is exceptional, DiCaprio in a greasy topknot not this much fun since his Quaalude-induced leglessness in "The Wolf of Wall Street" a dozen years ago. Taylor is sexy and dynamic if duplicitous while Infiniti breaks out in a major way as her daughter in a confident debut. Del Toro displays cool calm while a trim as a whip Sean Penn sporting an exaggerated Nazi undercut and military body language displays a morose seriousness when Perfidia isn't helping him achieve Nirvana.

"One Battle After Another" is one of the year's and Thomas Anderson's best and will stand beside "The Silence of the Lambs" with its different interpretation of Tom Petty's 'American Girl.'

Warner Brothers releases "One Battle After Another" in theaters on 9/26/25.