Review
Movie Reviews
Review
Movie Reviews
DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Our film critic, Justin Chang, says "One Battle After Another," a new action thriller from the director Paul Thomas Anderson, is one of the best movies he's seen all year. It's a loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's novel "Vineland," starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a former political militant who's gone into hiding with his daughter. Here is Justin's review.
JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: Paul Thomas Anderson is one of Hollywood's great time travelers. He took us to turn of the century oil country in "There Will Be Blood," the 1950s London fashion world in "Phantom Thread" and the '70s San Fernando Valley twice in "Boogie Nights" and "Licorice Pizza." "One Battle After Another" is Anderson's first film in ages set in the present day. And partly for that reason, it grabs you and even smacks you in the face in a way that his other movies haven't. It's a prescient, mesmerizing, frequently hilarious and fearlessly political piece of work. It's also an action thriller, staged on an epic canvas, with harrowing gunfights, daring rooftop escapes and poundingly visceral car chases, including one staged on a rolling desert highway that must be seen to be believed.
The exact time frame isn't specified. But from the opening sequence, in which a band of revolutionaries rescue immigrants from a detention center near the U.S.-Mexico border, it's clear that the moment is ours. The revolutionaries call themselves the French 75. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Pat, an explosives expert. A searing Teyana Taylor plays his lover, Perfidia Beverly Hills, who's fiercely dedicated to the group's radical principles. The film's first half hour catches us up on the heat and momentum of their reckless romance and also on the tension and danger of their work, as they plant bombs in courthouses and pro-life politicians' offices.
Perfidia makes a powerful enemy of an Army colonel with the colorful name of Steven J. Lockjaw. He's played by an unnerving Sean Penn. A dark, sometimes perverse game of cat and mouse ensues. And it all ends in betrayal and disaster. Perfidia vanishes, forcing Pat to go into hiding with their infant daughter while many of the French 75 are rounded up or killed. Sixteen years later, Pat, calling himself Bob Ferguson, is hiding out in a fictional town called Baktan Cross.
The film was shot across California and in El Paso, Texas. His daughter, Willa, is now a smart, plucky teenager, played by the remarkable young actor Chase Infiniti. A fitting name, since the rest of the movie is basically one relentless pursuit. Lockjaw has located them and sent troops into Baktan Cross on the pretext of cracking down on immigrants. His true targets, though, are Bob and Willa. Amid the chaos, father and daughter are separated. Willa is rescued by an old friend of her dad's, played by a terrific Regina Hall. Bob, meanwhile, narrowly escapes Lockjaw's clutches and calls on the French 75 for help. But he hasn't been in touch with them for years, and with his memory fried by booze and pot, he can't remember all the secret pass phrases to confirm his identity.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Rise and shine.
LEONARDO DICAPRIO: (As Bob) Bat an eyelash.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Good morning.
DICAPRIO: (As Bob) There are no hands on the clock.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Why?
DICAPRIO: (As Bob) Because they're not needed.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) What time is it?
DICAPRIO: (As Bob) Oh. You know, I don't remember that part.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) All right.
DICAPRIO: (As Bob) Let's just not nitpick over the password stuff. Look, this is Bob Ferguson, all right? You just called my house. Let's cut the [expletive]. I need the rendezvous point.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) What time is it?
DICAPRIO: (As Bob) Look, Steve Lockjaw just attacked my home. I lost my daughter. This is Bob Ferguson, you understand?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Right. Yeah.
DICAPRIO: (As Bob) I don't remember any more of this. I don't remember any more of this code speak, all right? Let's just get on with what is the rendezvous point.
CHANG: DiCaprio has always been an underappreciated comic performer. And he hasn't been this funny or physically dynamic in a film since "The Wolf Of Wall Street." Bob spends most of the movie running around in a plaid bathrobe and sporting a messy man bun, desperately trying to find Willa. He gets some help from Willa's extremely resourceful martial arts teacher, played by a sensational Benicio Del Toro. I'd watch a completely separate film focused just on Del Toro's character and what he calls his Latino Harriet Tubman situation, which offers migrants refuge and safe passage through Baktan Cross.
In 2014, Anderson directed a largely faithful adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's stoner detective novel "Inherent Vice." "One Battle After Another" takes far more creative liberties with another Pynchon work, "Vineland," which was set in the '60s, '70s and '80s. Although Anderson has shifted the time frame, the weave of zany dark comedy, sociopolitical satire and controlled narrative chaos feels unmistakably Pynchonesque. That's especially true of an outlandish subplot - or is it? - involving a shadowy cabal of Christian nationalists whom Lockjaw is involved with. Elsewhere, when protesters clash with riot police in Baktan Cross, the movie achieves the grit and immediacy of a gorilla documentary.
It's safe to say that Anderson thinks America is in grim shape, which is nothing new. In two of his best films, "There Will Be Blood" and "The Master," he argued that violence, greed and religious hucksterism are part of the national character. But Anderson isn't a cynic. I've always thought of him as a big-hearted pessimist. And here he's given us both a gonzo vision of a nation at war with itself and a deeply resonant father-daughter love story. What's ultimately most striking about "One Battle After Another" is its extraordinary tenderness, as Bob and Willa try to find their way back to each other. The worst of times really can bring out the best of humanity, the best of movies, too.
BIANCULLI: Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker magazine. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair. On Monday's show, comic and actor Cristela Alonzo talks about growing up in a Texas border town. Her mother was a Mexican immigrant who was undocumented until Alonzo was 10. Alonzo's family squatted in an abandoned diner. She became the first Latina to create, write and star in a network TV show. She has a new Netflix comedy special. I hope you can join us.
(SOUNDBITE OF AARON GOLDBERG'S "TROCANDO EM MIUDOS")
BIANCULLI: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Briger is our managing producer. Our senior producers today are Roberta Shorrock and Thea Chaloner. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman and Julian Herzfeld. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Hope Wilson is our consulting visual producer. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.
(SOUNDBITE OF AARON GOLDBERG'S "TROCANDO EM MIUDOS")
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