Disappointing
Summary
One Battle After Another has its moments, but a brutal first forty minutes, a thoroughly unlikeable Teyana Taylor, draggy pace, and sporadic action make it extremely flawed.
Plot: Ex-revolutionary Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) endeavours to save his daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), from a brutal military officer (Sean Penn).
Review: The only Paul Thomas Anderson movie I watched, I liked; that was Boogie Nights. It’s weird that I haven’t watched any of his other movies. I had an interest in There Will Be Blood, but for some reason, I just never sat down and watched it. I figured I would give this one a crack, though. Never read the source material, Vineyard by Thomas Pynchon. At least it wasn’t a reboot, sequel, or based on a board game, though…right?
The movie has its strengths. Leonardo DiCaprio is hilarious after the first forty minutes; his wild-eyed, frantic energy makes everything great. I loved him not remembering the last password in the extended, complicated code to find out where his daughter was, and reacted with foul-mouthed scorn. It’s literally every frustrating call to a customer service centre. Benicio Del Toro is…well…Benicio Del Toro – the guy is just smooth. Sean Penn brings his usual brand of intensity to the villain role. Chase Infiniti is shockingly not annoying as the teenage daughter.
The movie has an excellent end sequence. There’s a three-way chase taking place in cars between Infiniti, John Hoogenaaker, and DiCaprio. It results in an absolutely brutal head-on collision that drew gasps from the audience. That’s after an equally shocking headshot to another character that results in an impressive crash in the desert. That chase, though…man…it made me think of Bullitt or French Connection – a late 60s or early 70s car chase, with the grainy filters, washed-out lighting and POVs. It’s the most impressive thing in the film.
Now, let’s get to the negatives: starting with the first forty minutes…man oh man. I say forty minutes…could have been more or less…in a movie this long, who knows? It felt like forty minutes, which is why I say it was. Anyhow, the first forty minutes sucks.
A lot of that can be attributed to Teyana Taylor’s Perfidia Beverly Hills. That’s the character’s name. What a cheap character. She’s overly foul-mouthed, cheats on her lover with Sean Penn’s sleazy military officer (for no good reason), gets jealous of her own daughter, and actually tells DiCaprio that she comes first over everyone else. Gee, what a character you can get behind. Then, she turns snitch on her own side and slinks off into the shadows. At the end of the movie, there’s supposed to be this emotional scene where DiCaprio’s character gives his daughter a letter from her mother. The only problem is, who cares? Who cares what she has to say at this point? I tell you, that first forty minutes are garbage. Just a lot of noise and bullshit ranting by Beverly Hills, and what the hell are the revolutionaries pissed off about? No one knows. They’re just…pissed off. Because…yeah. If I had been watching this movie on stream, I would have ended it before those forty minutes were up.
The fact that this movie is 162 minutes is a disgrace. Seriously, why the long run time? The conversation between the white supremacist “Christmas Adventurers Club” goes on and on and on. I mean, some of the dialogue is funny, but it’s mostly a finger twirl. That happens throughout; scenes go on too long, just to throw in another witty line or something. If you look at the plot, it’s a fairly simple chase movie, so I’m not sure why it had to be almost three hours long. It also had multiple moments where I thought the movie was ending, just for it to continue, which always pisses me off.
Finally, back to the action. As good as the final sequence is, it’s the only memorable action scene in the film. I’ve been reading how the “action set pieces” are being praised by critics – were they watching John Wick, instead? It’s nothing. DiCaprio falling off a roof and immediately getting tasered was funny, but in the action department, this movie generally lacks teeth. It’s women shooting guns at nothing, and what could have been a memorable scene when the Native tracker is killed in a gunfight with mercenaries happens off-screen. Why bother?
I’ve heard some people call this movie woke, and I can see why; there’s some wokeism in it, and yeah, the bad guys are white supremacists, and yeah, a big part of the movie is a mixed-race daughter and white father. The film at least doesn’t feel like it’s wagging its finger at me. Having white supremacists who don’t like interracial relationships is not enough for me to declare this thing a woke piece of trash. There are other criticisms I can make that are more valid.
At the end of the day, did I like this movie? It’s okay. It has its moments. It’s not great, though, and with this pedigree of cast and director, I expect great. It’s good; you can catch it on streaming if you want. However, if you choose to pass, I can’t really convince you that you’re missing out.