Reviews For The Easily Distracted: One Battle After Another

Title: One Battle After Another

Describe This Movie In One Simpsons Quote:

LISA: What do you think, Thomas Pynchon?
PYNCHON: These wings are V-licious!

Brief Plot Synopsis: Always remember your code phrases.

Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 4.5 Gil Scott-Herons out of 5.

Tagline: “Some search for battle, others are born into it…”

Better Tagline: “Maybe it’s … Pyncholine.”

Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Bob (Leonard DiCaprio) and Perfidia (Teyana Taylor) are revolutionary lovers, working with their fellow members of the French 75 (not the cocktail) to free immigrant detainees and blow up government/right-wing headquarters. Perfidia isn’t mother material, however, and bails on Bob and their infant daughter Willa. Fast forward 16 years, and Bob and Willa (Chase Infiniti) are living an uneasy under-the-radar life. That changes when a figure from the past, the fanatical Col. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), has a sudden personal interest in their family.

✖ https://www.youtube.com/embed/kQUPdVxZNPk?si=pu9Os6gGxZh04saD i

“Critical” Analysis: Paul Thomas Anderson doesn’t much like making movies set in the 21st century. Aside from 2002’s Punch Drunk Love (which really shouldn’t count, since the subplot adapts an event that took place in 1999) and two set contemporaneously with their release (Hard Eight, Magnolia) both came out way back in the 1900s.

That trend ends in a big way with One Battle After Another, which seizes fiercely upon current events to depict an America bent to the breaking point by fear and hatred, but still possessing the capacity to change. That representation is personified in DiCaprio’s Bob, whose post-revolutionary years have been taken up with substance abuse, nostalgia, and neglectful parenting. It isn’t until Willa disappears that he’s forced into action.

It’s only recently that DiCaprio has loosened up with his roles (winning an Oscar will do that), but Bob isn’t even as half-assed effective as OUATIH’s Rick Dalton with a flamethrower. His initial efforts to track down Willa (and a charger for his 1G phone) are only occasionally effective because of assistance from fellow subversives working stealthily in the community. He is, not to beat around the bush, a goof.

Chief among these is Sergio (Benicio Del Toro), Willa’s sensei and an organizer of Borrego Springs’ version of the Underground Railroad. Del Toro is delightfully laconic, and his Zen idiosyncrasies are a nice counterpoint to the freakier performances of DiCaprio and Penn.

Because there’s little in the way of subtlety here. Anderson is on record as wanting to make a movie of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, having already loosely adapted the author’s V. for The Master and, more faithfully, Inherent Vice to great effect in 2015. And if anything, the director is even more on the nose here in bringing Pynchon’s balance of conspiracy and chaos.

Warner Bros. Pictures

For example, the white supremacist cabal behind America’s pumped-up crusade against — not just immigrants, but all people of color — is as sinister as it is ridiculous. Their focus on “native born” allies and strict policy against interracial relations, which directly leads to “Bedford Forrest* Medal of Honor” winner Lockjaw’s actions. Meanwhile the revolutionaries, while certainly on the side of the angels, are only marginally more competent.

That said, Anderson isn’t trying to make friends. The powers that be are nakedly racist and the opening scenes, showcasing Perfidia’s (full name Perfidia Beverly Hills) rampages and command of the screen, might as well come with screen prompts for the audience to yell, “Fuck yeah!”

One Battle After Another is as audacious as it is funny. And it *is* funny. Penn’s post-Spicoli output hasn’t exactly been light-hearted, but his Lockjaw — with his Simple Jack haircut — is marvelously twitchy, from his opening credits boner (don’t ask) to his not at all ignominious, uh, finale. Del Toro effortlessly commands every scene he’s in, while Taylor is as intimidating as she is formidable. But it’s Infiniti who’s a real discovery, helping turn Bob into something wholly alien to DiCaprio; a father figure.

Because as much as OBAA is a breakneck adventure, barely letting up for its almost 3-hour running time (the climactic car chase is somehow not overindulgent), it’s also a study in fatherhood and nontraditional families. It seems a revolution takes a village too, and One Battle After Another is PTA’s best since Inherent Vice.

*Look him up.

One Battle After Another is in theaters today.

This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.

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