One Battle After Another: Watch out for Penn

Sean Penn and Leonardo DiCaprio turn in outstanding performances in the thriller One Battle After Another.

But if we had to pick one for an Academy award, it would be Penn for his memorable portrayal of the twisted Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw.

The crazy colonel is left seething after being humiliated by members of a militant revolutionary group called the French 75 when they attack the Otay Mesa Detention Centre in San Diego where he is in charge.

More than that, Lockjaw becomes sexually infatuated with one of the members of the group, a gung-ho African American woman who goes by the name of Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor).

After catching her in the act of planting a bomb, however, he releases her after she agrees to have sex with him at a motel.

Co-produced, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another was inspired by the 1990 novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon.

Anderson was one of the first of the “video store” generation of film-makers and cut his teeth during the 1970s shooting films on video and editing them from VCR. to VCR.

His credits include the excellent 1979 Boogie Nights and the 2002 Punch-Drunk Love.

One Battle After Another stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti.

Headliner DiCaprio plays Perfida’s partner and the mother of their child, Pat Calhoun, an explosives expert who tries to talk her into retiring after she becomes pregnant.

But she’s having too much fun to quit.

Fast forward 20 years and a washed-up Calhoun is now a “stoner” and living off the grid with his teenaged daughter Charlene, as Bob and Willa Ferguson.

He tries to impress on her the importance of staying under the radar, but things go to hell when Lockjaw manages to get a bead on them.

He turns for help to Willa’s karate instructor Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro).

Although the pair have trained for this day, Bob’s drug-addled brain refuses to give up the information he needs to facilitate their escape.

The results are as hilarious as they are nerve-racking as the noose tightens.

Anderson revealed he had wanted to adapt Pynchon’s novel Vineland for years, and eventually incorporated several of his own stories into the book’s narrative.

Filming took place in California and was shot using VistaVision, making it one of the first films to use the format for principal photography since the 1960s.

With a budget between $130 million to $175 million, it is the most expensive film of Anderson’s career.

The story takes a twist when it is revealed that Willa is actually Lockjaw’s biological daughter.

Invited to join a secret society of wealthy, far-right white supremacists, the Christmas Adventurers Club, the colonel hunts for Willa to cover up his interracial relationship which exclude him from the the club.

Under the guise of an immigration and drug enforcement operation, Lockjaw dispatches his troops to backwater Baktan Cross in California to find the duo.

A trusted member of the French 75, Deandra (Regina Hall), rescues Willa just before her school dance is raided.

While high, Bob is contacted by the French 75, who warn him that Lockjaw is coming, just before his men breach Bob’s home.

Escaping through a tunnel, Bob contacts the group for help, but is unable to remember the password.

Willa’s karate teacher and community leader Sergio St. Carlos assists him while evacuating a stream of immigrants through a hidden passageway.

Fleeing with Sergio’s students across the rooftops, Bob falls and is captured.

Deandra brings Willa to the Sisters of the Brave Beaver, a convent of revolutionary nuns, where she learns the truth about her mother’s betrayal.

The Christmas Adventurers, meanwhile, uncover evidence of Lockjaw’s relationship with Perfidia, including claims that he fathered a child with her, and send member Tim Smith (John Hoogenakker) to eliminate both him and Willa.

Interesrtingly, the film’s title is taken from a 1969 statement by revolutionary political group The Weather Underground that was published in an issue of New Left Notes.

One Battle After Another is a great story with a great cast and you are sure to be riveted from whoa to go.

It isn’t available to stream yet, but you can still catch it at the cinema or pay to watch ity on Apple TV.

 

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