The Reel Review
A former U.S. guerrilla fighter’s life is turned upside down when his main enemy, a military officer with ties to a powerful, far-right cabal of white supremacists, discovers his whereabouts 16 years after his wife was captured and he and his mixed-race infant daughter went into hiding. Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Teyana Taylor and Regina Hall star in this action/thriller from writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood).
One Battle After Another is a heavily character-driven, violent, nonstop roller coaster ride as Colonel Lockjaw (Penn) is in hot pursuit of Bob (DiCaprio), who has turned into a pothead screwup who can’t remember what happened the day before, much less his rebel group’s secret codes from a decade and a half ago. There are strong performances throughout, in particular Penn, Taylor, Del Toro and Chase Infiniti (Presumed Innocent), as Bob’s now-teenage daughter haunted by her mother’s legacy.
At times the action feels crazy for the sake of crazy, and the over-simplified plot, while timely, misses the boat on delivering any significant political message. Even so, the final act’s trippy camerawork, over the desert hills of Borrego Springs, California, helps drive the twist-filled story to its ultimate conclusion. While imperfect, One Battle After Another is a solid, entertaining thriller.
REEL FACTS
• The cast includes three Oscar winners: Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant), Sean Penn (Milk, Mystic River) and Benicio Del Toro (Traffic).
• Paul Thomas Anderson is the white father of four mixed-race children. His partner, Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live, Bridesmaids), is the mixed-race daughter of a white dad who did not know how to do her hair after her mother, singer Minnie Riperton, died when she was 7.
• This was Anderson’s fifth and final feature film collaboration with first assistant director Adam Sommer, who died of thyroid cancer on November 27, 2024. They previously worked together on 2007’s There Will Be Blood, 2012’s The Master, 2014’s Inherent Vice and 2021’s Licorice Pizza.
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