Expecting a wacky comedy from the trailers, I was genuinely shocked by the chilling opening scene of One Battle After Another: a visceral sequence of revolutionaries violently breaking into a borderland U.S. immigration detention center. Led by the ferocious Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), a group calling themselves French 75 overpower the armed guards and liberate the detainees. During the raid, Perfidia finds and sexually humiliates their commander, one Captain Lockjaw (Sean Penn). OK, you have my attention.
The French 75 soon implode after a botched bank heist. Perfidia is captured and takes plea deal, entering witness protection in return for ratting out her comrades. Lockjaw brutally hunts down the remaining revolutionaries; some are assassinated, the others scatter, going completely underground. Perfidia herself eventually flees protection and disappears.
Jump ahead 16 years.
Perfidia’s partner, now going by Bob Ferguson (DiCaprio), lives a low-profile existence on the outskirts of a sanctuary city, raising their teenage daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti). Willa is sharp, sensible, and kind of embarrassed by her paranoid, stoner dad… but loves him just the same. As for Bob? Willa’s obviously the most important thing in his life. Otherwise he just seems to lounge around in his bathrobe stoned and drunk. Until he gets a sobering phone call: Lockjaw, now a Corporal, has resurfaced and he’s coming to clean house.
One Battle After Another is scrappy and frenetic. After its unsettling and disturbing first act, the film veers into absurdist action-comedy. Bumbling Bob, not-quite-clear-headed, tries to get in touch with the remaining revolutionaries who require him to remember a sequence of passwords from 16 years earlier. If you’ve ever tried to remember a login password that you changed 15 minutes ago, you can imagine how this scene is an instant classic for Leo’s clip reel.
Chase Infiniti holds her own as a strong-willed teen suddenly thrust into the mystery of her parents’ revolutionary past. Benicio del Toro is memorable as Willa’s martial arts instructor, the town’s literal Sensei, who doubles as the never-ruffled coordinator of the immigrant protection underground. Try not to be moved when you see how efficiently Sensei and the locals move folks to safety under threat.
But the absolute scene-stealer is Sean Penn. Lockjaw, down to his ridiculous name, is a caricature: a tightly coiled racist with Terminator-like vengeance. His physicality—from his stiff, controlled posture to his careful attention to taming his bangs with a wet comb—masks a small man who desperately wants to be recognized by the powerful white-supremacist elites. His desperation is pathetic, yet somehow this despicable man gets a wee bit of empathy from us as he is the last to know his dreams are for naught.
This film is distressing as it’s so absurdly timely. The screenplay is often triggering, spewing language like “lunatics and radicals,” “wetback,” and “half-breed,” and some comedic sequences hit with more of a gut punch than a joking slap.
Yet somehow, it still manages to inspire. The sanctuary city community, from nurses to skateboard punks to everyday folks, rally in solidarity when one of their own needs help. The resistance is really that simple: the simple agreement to take care of each other when it matters most.
