Two things can be true at once
Okay, right off the bat, I want to say that One Battle After Another is a movie I could have done without seeing. But Average Dude, you might say… three stars is not a horrible score. Please elucidate. Glad to.
A downer movie, week two
One Battle After Another is the story of ‘Ghetto’ Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio), a member of a way left of left domestic terrorist group called the French 75. They’re main heartburn is with the detaining and deportation of illegal immigrants and will go to great lengths to free them. Queue the explosions. To their credit, they don’t seem to want to actually kill anyone. Kind of antithetical to the whole terrorist thing, but okay.
Bow chicka bow-bow!
Engaging in acts of terrorism are an emotional high, across the board. It can almost be expected that there would be…liasons…between some of the terrorists. So saying, ‘Ghetto’ Pat developed a ‘relationship’ with Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), an ultra-radical participant in a group of radical participants (which is saying something). Terrorism makes for the very strangest of bedfellows, apparently.
One of the good guys?
The primary adversary to the French 75 and the man tasked by the Gub’ment to bring them to justice is an Army Colonel Steven J Lockjaw, a stone-faced military lifer if ever there was one. Lockjaw is seemingly devoid of any emotion in his single-minded pursuit of his quarry (note that I said ‘seemingly’). It’s hard to actually get behind him as one of the good guys, but there he is, in all his self-righteous glory.
Remember, Safety first
Engaging in targeted acts of violence seems to me like a fairly unsafe way to spend time together. So, it comes as no surprise that the combatants would eshew any kind of safety in their tristing, and the product of such a dangerous liason would be a child. Enter baby Charlene. Charlene is adored by ‘Ghetto’ Pat, who takes to fatherhood easily and completely (in the context of being a terrorist, that is). But for Perfidia, not so much. In the end, Perfidia’s psychopathy catches both ‘Ghetto’ Pat and Charlene in its wake of chaos and destruction. Exit Perfidia Beverly Hills.
That’s as much of this movie as I’m prepared to give up. It sets the table fairly well and really gives up nothing. There are a few twists and turns to this story that, once started, they are kind of predictable.Like tipping the first domino, one leads to another.
The Good(ish), the Bad and the Ugly
Gonna say this as plain as I can. Although there were some really good performances by DiCaprio, Taylor and Penn, I did not like this movie. Really, not at all, and I’ll tell you why. Call me a sap, but I like a feel-good movie. Feel-good movies come in all genres, with different flavors of feel-good (think Aliens 2 feel-good vs Homeward Bound feel-good). In a feel-good movie, there’s always someone or something to root for.
But not in One Battle After Another. I could say that I was kind of rooting for Charlene, but in the end…? Maybe we had some empathy for ‘Ghetto’ Pat, being abandoned and trying to take care of a baby alone. But come on. He’s a terrorist. How much compassion for him are we expected to muster?
And Colonel Steven J Lockjaw? Really? Lockjaw? Someone actually named him this? From the first moments of seeing this character and hearing his cartoonish name, I could tell this was going to be a slanted story at best, not to be taken seriously at worst. Thanks to a committed performance by Sean Penn, I’m awarding it the former. Barely.
Ah, Sergio…we barely knew thee…
Added to the cast for no particular reason other than name recognition was Benicio del Toro as Sergio St. Carlos, a French 75 sympathizer and karate instructor. He had such a small part in this movie that we really didn’t have time or reason to develop any kind of attachment to him. A great talent totally wasted.
Once again, you’re welcome
After leaving the moviehaus, Mrs Average Dude and I really only had one takeaway. This was an ugly movie, with an ugly story and ugly characters. In most cases, not just ugly, but really detestable. There was not one thing to hang your hat on and say ‘I’m glad I saw that’. I half expected this walking in but knew you guys would benefit from my sacrifice. I’m also brutally reminded that you can have excellent performances in a vehicle that has zero redeeming value in it.
The Score
So, it is with full warning that I give One Battle After Another a 3 out of 5 in acknowledgement of performances that definitely got the message across, even if the message was horrible. Like most of you, I don’t really do artsy. Average Dude, and all. Why Hollywood decided this would be a good movie to make is beyond me. I can find no redeeming value in it and I’ll be glad to never watch this movie again.
Going to go watch the LotR trilogy to get my mind right.
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