One Battle After Another

“Ocean waves. Ocean waves.”

Well, I reviewed Eddington earlier in the year. I suppose it’s only right that I tackle the other black dramedy-thriller movie from a big name director that examines, in its own way, the violently fractured political landscape of America.

This one’s a bit harder to review, in my opinion. Unlike Eddington — which roots itself in a very specific period — this movie is slightly ambiguous with when exactly it takes place. Like sure, there are smart phones and such, but there's also a number of payphones and it does not specify if it’s supposed be America right now or an even more radical version that exists in the near future. The book it is partly based on, Vineland by Thomas Pynchon, had a story set between the 1960s and 1984.

Thematically, I think this ambiguity was intentional and part of the film’s point, but I’ll get to that in a minute. I’ll try to briefly describe the plot.

In this film, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Bob Ferguson, formerly known as “Ghetto” Pat Calhoun of the French 75, a group of militant American revolutionaries. Bob’s life took a different turn when he hooked up with a fellow French 75 member, the elusive Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor). 16 years later, Bob is raising his and Perfidia’s daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), in a California sanctuary city. The main plot of the film gets going when said sanctuary city is invaded by Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), an old enemy of the French 75 with a very personal beef against Perfidia, Bob and Willa. That’s about as much as I can say without spoiling things.

Like the last of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Pynchon-inspired movies, Inherent Vice, I was not totally in love with One Battle After Another; though I did like this one more and am more willing to revisit it at some point. That said, I can’t deny that it’s another example of why Anderson is a modern filmmaking master. This is his first major action thriller, and it’s about as unique and engrossing as any other movie he’s made; I’d rank it up there with some of his most impressive ones like Magnolia, There Will Be Blood and The Master. Though I will say, it’s the first of his movies I’ve seen since Magnolia that’s put a greater emphasis on plot than character.

And maybe that’s why this one didn’t have quite the same impact on me that some of his other movies have. Because I do think he excels at that sort of deep focus look into the lives and masked psyches of the characters better than he does with the expansive novelistic plots. It’s along the lines of the problem I had with Inherent Vice, which (as far as I remember) is a movie populated by all these zany, tangentially-connected characters trapped inside a deliberately, gleefully convoluted plot. The plot here has a faster pace and more clarity, but at times I think the characters and performances get somewhat lost in its momentum.

Which is a shame because how Anderson characters are written and performed always feels like a major part of his movies, and there are some good ones here. They just don't have much room to breathe. Benicio Del Toro was definitely my favorite as the delightfully coolheaded Sensei Sergio St. Carlos, a karate teacher and community leader. Bob is interesting as a sort of burn-out stoner dad forced to suddenly snap back into the mode of a revolutionary to save his daughter; makes for another great unhinged and unvarnished DiCaprio role. Sean Penn plays a great weirdo villain with Lockjaw, as amusing as he is revolting to watch. There are three significant characters who are all women of color, though sadly only one of them gets a ton of screentime: Newcomer Chase Infiniti does well acting alongside pros like DiCaprio, Penn and Del Toro. Regina Hall delivers a strong dramatic performance and Teyana Taylor as Perfidia is basically the main character for the first half hour, but neither of them are in the film as much as I would have liked.

I will be watching this again. At the end of the day, it’s still P.T. Anderson doing a politically-charged action thriller with gusto, which is something I've not seen from him before. And there’s a lot to enjoy just based on that. On a technical level, it’s one of the bigger and more audacious entries in his oeuvre.

I do appreciate this movie’s ambition. In some ways, it’s a far more successful version of what Francis Ford Coppola was trying to do with that Megalopolis thing; this is apparently a movie Anderson has wanted to make for most of his filmmaking career. One Battle After Another tackles all of these major issues enflaming America to this day and yet weaves it all together with powerful themes in a story that never feels as though it’s a cheap reflection of what we see on the news. If that makes any sense.

In the present day storyline, Colonel Lockjaw's a psychopathic manchild whose zealously aggressive targeting of minorities, foreigners and "haters" has made him eligible for membership in The Christmas Adventurers Club, a cushy yet clandestine white supremacist organization seeking to reshape America in their own vacuous image. In order to secure his place among their racist ranks, he needs to tie up personal loose ends with the remnants of the French 75. This compels him to lead his domestic military forces to attack a sanctuary city under the guise of rounding up terrorists and illegal immigrants, when really he's just there to go after Bob and Willa for his own agenda. Sounds familiar, no?

The overarching theme and real point to the movie, in my eyes, is represented through the character of Willa. She's just a teenaged girl who wants to go to a dance with her friends, but is inexplicably wrapped up in the lame-brained cloak and dagger war between her revolutionary heritage and the violently oppressive American status quo spearheaded by Lockjaw, quickly learning the true relevance of each side to her own life. The title of the film is dropped once or twice in reference to different things (the French 75's revolution sixteen years earlier; the present-day predicament Bob, Willa and the town of Baktan Cross find themselves in), but Willa's arc also highlights the idea that these conflicts between those who oppress and those who resist is part of a neverending struggle. Until we move forward as a society or perhaps even as a species, there will always be those who see themselves as superior and justified in stepping on the weak. And there will always be those who rise up and fight back against those forces. Maybe it's true for all of mankind, maybe not, but it's certainly still true in America.

Bits and pieces:

* Like Ari Aster's Eddington, One Battle After Another is the first P.T. Anderson film I've managed to see in the theater.

* Apparently in some places, the movie is listed under the title The Battle of Baktan Cross. Baktan Cross is the sanctuary city where Bob and Willa live.

* At some point, Bob falls from a great height and down into a tree. This may have been a reference to when this happened to DiCaprio's character in The Revenant.

* Some people are calling One Battle After Another a modern Dr. Strangelove. That didn’t occur to me as I was watching the movie, but I think it get it. It’s a farcical depiction of the modern USA in reality that involves rather over the top characters with silly names. The sexually frustrated military man Steven J. Lockjaw definitely has some parallels with characters like Jack D. Ripper or Buck Turgidson.

* Alana Haim — musician and star of Anderson’s previous film, Licorice Pizza — has a cameo as a member of the French 75 early in the film.

Quotes:

Perfidia Beverly Hills: “I want you to create a show, Pat. Okay? This is going to announce the motherfucking revolution. Make it good. Make it bright. Impress me.”

Steven J. Lockjaw: “I’ll be seeing you very soon.”
Perfidia: “Not if I see you first, fuckface.”

Lockjaw: “You like black girls? I love ‘em. I love ‘em!”
If Quentin Tarantino can be proud of his fetishes, then P.T. Anderson can too I suppose.

Willa Ferguson: “I didn’t ask for this. That’s just how the cards were rolled out for me.”
Bob Ferguson: “It’s not cards. You don’t roll cards. It’s dice.”

Roy More: “Make it clean.”
Tim Smith: “Clean?”
Roy More: “We should all be able to eat off the floor.”

Bob: “I don’t get mad. I don’t get mad about anything anymore.”

Bob: “I need a weapon, man! All you got is goddamn nunchucks!”

Bob: “Goddamn it! VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN!”

Sensei Sergio St. Carlos: “You know what freedom is? No fear. Just like Tom fucking Cruise.”

Willa: “Why is your shirt so tight?”
Lockjaw: “… I’m not gay, if that’s what you’re saying.”
Willa: “I didn’t say that.”
Lockjaw: “I’m not a homosexual.”
Willa: “I did not say that, but I see the lifts in your shoes.”

Four and a half out of five perpetual struggles for freedom.