Hail St. Nick! — One Battle After Another
When I was a kid, I did my best to learn as much as possible about everything I could. My grandmother even had a full set of Encyclopedia Americana that I pored over from time to time. I took the old slogan of “knowledge is power” to heart. But I also remained blissfully unaware of the harsher aspects of the world, sticking to what my teachers and family told me rather than seeking out anything upsetting, particularly in the pre-internet age.
That all changed in 1994. As part of Black History Month every February, my classmates and I did learn and understand that racism was a thing, but for the most part, we didn’t experience it. Our schools were integrated, to the point that our district even bussed us between buildings in the suburbs and inner city. There was fighting and bullying (with me being on the receiving end far too often), but I never really saw anything that constituted true, ingrained hatred. Racism was an abstract concept, something that happened long before I was born, something my mom and grandma lived through. They raised me to be friendly and welcoming to all, and not to discriminate, so I didn’t.
Then came news out of Alabama. A national scandal had erupted when a high school principal threatened to cancel the prom to avoid interracial couplings, and when a mixed race student called him out, she was referred to as a “mistake.” I couldn’t believe it. It was still real. That kind of irrational hatred was alive and well. To look a child in the eye and decide that she shouldn’t exist because she had black and white parents just seemed inconceivable to me. That was when I knew that bigotry was an active threat that had to be vigilantly fought at every turn (even though I didn’t know what “vigilantly” meant at the time), and why I resolved to be an ally for any persecuted class of people. I’m far from perfect, but that crystallizing moment changed the course of my life and woke me up to the realities of what bad people can do.
That memory swirled in my head repeatedly as I watched Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, One Battle After Another, loosely based on (the credits use the phrase “inspired by”) Thomas Pynchon’s novel, Vinewood. Shifting the book’s timeline from the 80s to the modern era, and infusing the proceedings with a ton of timely political overtones, the movie will campaign hard this Awards Season as a darkly funny but painfully poignant treatise on race, rebellion, and resilience in the face of authoritarian malice. Thankfully, it has definitely earned its many accolades to date, and it does stand as one of the best motion pictures of the year.
Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Pat Calhoun, a pyrotechnics expert operating within a small band of resistance fighters known as the French 75. The film opens with the group executing an act of subterfuge at the U.S./Mexico border, where hundreds of immigrants are being held in a prison camp. The team infiltrates the facility with the intent of freeing the migrants and transporting them to safety. Calhoun’s job is to set off fireworks as a distraction. Meanwhile, his girlfriend, operating under what I assume is an alias, called Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), captures and holds the camp’s commander, Col. Stephen Lockjaw (Sean Penn), at gunpoint, turning him on with her aggression and body. Lockjaw, visibly aroused (if there was one thing this movie did NOT need it was Sean Penn with a boner), becomes obsessed with Perfidia after the incident, tracking her along with the French 75’s other operations. Her tryst with Calhoun is torrid and passionate, but she’s willing to trade sexual favors with Lockjaw to avoid capture.
One day, a bank robbery goes awry, and Perfidia shoots a security guard. While the gang does carry weapons and make threats, they hadn’t resorted to outright violence until this point. Their goal was always sabotage and propaganda, highlighting the social injustices of this country, including exploitation of the poor and vulnerable by the wealthy and the nakedly racist immigration policies (Pynchon’s novel apparently highlights differences between Richard Nixon’s brand of conservatism and the free love counterculture and Ronald Reagan’s supply-side rhetoric as a way to illustrate how the revolutionary spirit changed between the 1960s and 80s, while the film is firmly concerned with Donald Trump’s dictatorial and ethnocentric jingoism), Perfidia has recently had a baby, named Charlene, and after her lapse in judgment, she faces a harsh choice upon her arrest. She can spend the rest of her life in prison, or she can name names and go into witness protection thanks to Lockjaw’s influence. She opts for the latter, forcing Pat to flee and go into hiding with the baby under the assumed identities of Bob and Willa Ferguson. After the deed is done, Perfidia leaves her new home and goes to Mexico rather than live as Lockjaw’s fetish.
We then jump 16 years forward for the real meat of the flick. Pat, now Bob, lives in Baktan Cross, a melting pot town labeled as a “sanctuary city” by the feds due to its sympathetic community. Despite being a paranoid drunk, “Bob” does a fine job raising “Willa,” now played by Chase Infiniti of Presumed Innocent in her big screen debut. Although he spent years fearing that Lockjaw and his lackeys would come for him, Bob is proud that Willa has grown up into a smart, kind, and self-actualized young adult. She has her mother’s vibrant spirit, but lives a normal life. She gets good grades, has a diverse group of friends, and is a dedicated karate student, training under her sensei Sergio, played by Benicio del Toro.
Meanwhile, Lockjaw is moving up in the world as well. After garnering praise for his work in stopping the French 75, and due to his years of being a “true believer,” he is summoned to Washington, where he begins the vetting process of joining the Christmas Adventure Club, a secret society of white supremacists (their hilarious greeting phrase serving as this review’s headline). In the interview, he’s asked if he ever engaged in interracial relations, which he denies, but once he’s out of the room, it’s time to tie up loose ends. After learning of Bob’s location and new identity, Lockjaw orders a massive raid of the city as cover to kidnap and kill Willa if a DNA test shows that she’s actually his biological daughter. Through their underground network, remaining French 75 members (Regina Hall, Wood Harris, and Paul Grimstad) are able to intercept Willa at a school dance before the soldiers show up, while Bob has to beat his own hasty retreat despite being stoned.
The four paragraphs I just typed out summarizing the plot don’t nearly do it justice, as Anderson has packed this picture to the gills with both believable action and riotous black comedy. While I didn’t chuckle at Penn’s, er, reaction, to Perfidia, quite a few others in the auditorium did. What I found more funny was the fact that this gang of what many would call domestic terrorists had no fear in showing their faces (apart from Pat), and that they monologue like they’re in a 70s blacksploitation film even though this is set in the 21st century.
Similarly, there’s a lot of fun to be had with the naming conventions and clever references. Simply calling the villain “Lockjaw” is pretty hysterical due to his proclivities. I also kind of love that Alana Haim has a small role as a member of the French 75 named Mae West. It kind of suits her perfectly on a meta level. When the group is sold out, Lockjaw receives the highest honor of his career, the Nathan Bedford Medal of Honor, named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a prominent slave owner, confederate soldier, and Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan during the Reconstruction Era, a sly hint to the way the government glorifies minority oppression. There’s a delicious irony in the CAC using St. Nick as a symbol, even though the real St. Nicholas was a dark-skinned man, treating the figure as if the society was founded by Megyn Kelly, as well as considering a skilled bounty hunter (Eric Schweig) to be insufficiently American because he’s half indigenous. Even the organization’s name evoked the “Return of Chef” episode of South Park, where the show satirized Isaac Hayes’ departure from the program for making fun of Scientology by having him join the “Super Adventure Club,” which travels around the world to molest children. Just as a bit of icing on the sardonic cake, one of the lead members is named Roy Moore, same as the former Chief Justice of Alabama who, among other things, was removed from the bench twice for installing the Ten Commandments in the state Supreme Court, was a major proponent of the “birther” conspiracy that claimed Barack Obama wasn’t a natural-born citizen, and who lost a U.S. Senate race due to multiple allegations of sexually assaulting underage girls.
Beyond these gags, the script itself is just plain smart. While the bulk of the political commentary is aimed squarely at the right-wing extremists who’ve defined the last 10 years of political discourse (and who currently hold the reins of power) in a way that could almost be considered a backdoor lesson in critical race theory (which this film’s targets have tried to ban in schools nationwide despite it being a graduate-level topic that would never be taught to young children anyway), there’s plenty of fun to be had at the expense of the left. The French 75’s early plans seem to pan out based more on luck than on competence, Bob and Willa have an argument over pronoun usage, the security protocols are so involved and detailed that even so-called intellectuals can’t remember them all, and some of the side characters are intentionally one-note to show the absurdity of youth trends, especially when juxtaposed with Sergio’s latter-day “Underground Railroad” of immigrant smuggling.
What I’m saying is that this isn’t a one-sided argument. All of the good guys apart from Willa are, to one degree or another, criminals, some of them violently so. The trick Anderson pulls is to give a verbal and visual illustration of the cognitive dissonance in the rhetoric. For the last several decades, but certainly heightened since 2001, there’s been a massive shift at the top of our politics toward dictatorship and concentrated central power, characterized by the conservative movement consistently pushing back the proverbial goalposts to the point that the lunatic fringe is now presented as mainstream while centrism and liberalism are lumped together as subversive and dangerous. Real people end up voting against their own interests because they’ve been systemically convinced that “liberal” is an anti-American slur. This is how we get entrenched conservative leadership despite eternally underwater approval ratings, and why minority rule becomes the standard once achieved, as those in charge take aggressive (and even militaristic) steps to codify their worldview and make it harder to ever let the public wrest the authority from them. Essentially, Anderson is showing that this isn’t a balanced issue. Yes, Gen Z-ers can be annoying, but is that really worse than an army rolling tanks down your streets to arrest anyone who looks brown? No, it’s not. But that’s what’s happening, not just in this movie, but in real life right now. The only way this isn’t a 1:1 parallel with our world is that the heavily armed and armored “police” are actually shown here to be quite smart and capable tacticians, rather than the untrained masses that ICE is currently recruiting where the only qualification seems to be a fiery, passionate loathing for anyone who speaks Spanish.
This is only aided by the main performances. DiCaprio gives us one of his finest turns, a manic yet layered take where he has to juggle Bob’s fears and insecurities while also rediscovering his own fighting spirit and trying to remember all of his training (the payoff for not remembering a lengthy call-and-response code is one of the funniest moments in a sea of them). As Pat/Bob, DiCaprio has to act crazy while simultaneously being the only sane one in the room at times, and his commitment to the physical demands of the role is very much to be commended. This is also the rare part where DiCaprio actually starts to look his age now that he’s on the other side of 50. There were moments where his performance reminded me of Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider, and in the kookier moments, as Bob becomes more desperate and disheveled, he even starts to look like his former Departed co-star.
As Willow, Infiniti does some pretty spectacular work, worthy of an Oscar nomination. In an age where movies go out of their way to make their heroines into perfect superwomen, Willa is allowed to be flawed and scared. Her life is on the line merely for the sin of being born, something that would terrify any of us were we in her shoes. However, she’s also shown to be intelligent, resourceful, and open to criticism. Her introduction, where she does a kata in Sergio’s dojo, is a pristine thesis statement for her character. She performs the movements, but as Sergio reminds her, she’s forgetting to breathe, so she takes the advice to heart and quickly adapts. In the span of just a few seconds we’re given a more complete and nuanced character than 1,000 parkour expert Mulans. As the film wears on, you can see an inner conflict coming to terms with the outer stakes she faces, as finds truth and utility in her father’s rambling overprotectiveness, and applies what she’s learned so that she can return to her normal life and find her own ways to make the world a better place.
Then you have what is essentially the comic relief, for good and bad. On the good side is Sergio, with del Toro being subdued but deliberate in all things. His somewhat stoic and matter-of-fact approach belies the strong sense of comedic timing in his line readings. He’s essentially playing an idealized version of Bob, always being a few steps ahead of the game and always having a contingency for when things go pear-shaped. He’s calm and collected while Bob is constantly panicking and on edge, giving his scenes with DiCaprio a tremendous buddy comedy feel.
On the flip of things is Lockjaw. I’ve made no secret that I’m not a big fan of Sean Penn. I think he’s overrated, at times he appears humorless and pretentious, and both of his Oscars were unearned. I’ve genuinely liked probably two of his performances over the years: Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High and his brief appearance as a parody of William Holden in Anderson’s last film, Licorice Pizza. I’ve also enjoyed some clips I’ve seen of him in Dead Man Walking, but I’ve never sat down and watched the entire picture, so I can’t quite judge that one fairly.
Here though? He’s fantastic. He imbues Lockjaw with this simpering inferiority complex that not only fuels the character’s anger and doubt, but also perfectly illustrates the core issue with people like him in our society. He’s the “quiet part out loud” contrast to the dignified secrecy of the WASPs that make up the rest of the Christmas Adventurers. Like so many hypocritical baddies in cinema, he really does believe that he’s not just entitled, but pure in his actions, no matter how evil. It’s yet another piece of poetic justice that the start of his downfall is a liberated black woman, because he gets so consumed by this one weakness in his otherwise rigid façade that he ends up missing an easy out. If he leaves Bob and Willa alone, the CAC has no motivation to track him, and even then, he could just be honest about his relationship with Perfidia, but spin it in disgustingly racist terms, like invoking Thomas Jefferson’s relations with his slaves or the erection of Confederate statues in the South during the Jim Crow Era as a means to remind black people of “their place.” The crucial irony is that if he’s honest and leans even further into the ethnic slurs, the more likely he would be forgiven and embraced by those who lie, harm, and exploit.
But that’s not how Penn plays him. He goes hard on the misguided sense of righteousness, delights in his cruelty, and goes to great lengths to assert his position to intimidate or worse. This carries into the physical aspect of Penn’s performance, where he walks in an awkward, fast-paced gait, as if he’s marching at 1.5x speed. He puffs out his chest like a brutish tough guy character from the 1940s, but because he doesn’t have a lot of body fat on him, it makes Lockjaw look like he’s put chest plate armor over an emaciated frame. This causes his posture to look uncomfortably top heavy, making his movements very stilted and nervous, as if he’s doing his best to hide the fact that he needs to take a massive shit but can’t find a bathroom to save his life. Penn carries that the entire way through, and it’s honestly kind of extraordinary.
On a technical level, the film also acquits itself quite admirably. Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead returns for his fifth score of an Anderson film (he previously did the soundtracks for There Will Be Blood, The Master, Inherent Vice, and Phantom Thread), delivering an intense accompaniment to the proceedings, vacillating between various genres to match the tone of the given scene, and to supplement the catalog tracks inserted throughout (the Christmas carols during CAC scenes mixed with Greenwood’s ambient instrumentation is pure gold). Michael Bauman, who served as cinematographer on Licorice Pizza, comes in for his second feature and does some immaculate work, integrating long shots and single-take sequences that give the audience a real feel for the infrastructure of the madness taking place on all sides of the main story. He also gives us an incredible climactic car chase that’s short on speed but high on suspense, mainly because he gives the viewer a proper sense of distance and geography, letting the tension build more from the gradual closing of gaps between vehicles than on high octane stunt driving. This results in the coolest shot in the entire film, as well as a series of fairly ingenious takes from nearly ground level (the camera appears to have been mounted on the underside of the front bumper) to show the literal ups and downs of the desert highway where the action takes place. It reminded me a bit of the driving shots in The Brutalist last year, only in that case it was meant to show the class divide as well as the literal and figurative odyssey of Adrien Brody’s story, whereas here it’s more to show the actual bumps in the road while still providing a smooth, roller coaster-like experience for the last crucial moments. Apart from those major achievements, the editing is crisp and logical, the sound design is on point, and the production design properly portrays Baktan Cross as any city in America, which is a key parallel to the here and now where the President is mobilizing National Guard troops to invade liberal municipalities under the guise of “fighting crime.”
It’s interesting to compare this film to Inherent Vice, which was the last time Anderson adapted Pynchon’s work. That film was stylish but at times very unfocused. I enjoyed it, but I could also see where others hated it, and the rough edges lent credibility to the idea that Pynchon’s prose could not be properly translated to the big screen. Here, Anderson used Vineland more as an inspiration and framework to create his own story, realizing from previous experience that he couldn’t make a straight up cinematic take on the novel. In doing so, he kept the spirit of Pynchon’s oddness while also holding up a mirror to the dangers of our modern society, making the audience laugh their collective asses off while not allowing the flick to be an escape from the horrors unfolding in our streets right at this moment in history. It’s an expert use of theme over plot as part of the adaptation process, and it makes for a wildly entertaining time capsule. This will likely compete hard for the Oscars next year, and deservedly so.
Still though, I could have done without seeing Sean Penn pitching a tent in his pants.
Grade: A
Join the conversation in the comments below! What film should I review next? What would you do in Pat/Bob’s position? How many passwords and phrases can you remember? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!
Originally published at http://actuallypaid.com on September 29, 2025.
