Two brilliant actors. A great script. And to top this, 13 Oscar nods. What a delicious masala this film would be. It indeed is. Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn are just captivating in Paul Thomas Anderson’s magical imagination of an America that has turned into a dictatorial State. The movie, One Battle After Another, is seemingly futuristic. But I would hardly think so. Even the most casual and inattentive viewer cannot miss that this Anderson work is a hard look at what is going on in Trump land. It is nothing short of a Fascist nation ruled by a man who may have been elected by a majority of citizens, but has turned into an unfeeling head of State. Do we smell the air that once engulfed Hitler’s Germany?
Brilliantly scripted and directed with precision, One Battle After Another conveys how immigrants are arrested, cruelly treated, and pushed out after being held in hostile detention centres. Here, the police and the military use brute force to break the very soul of these poor men, women and children. Yes, children as well. The work spells immediacy and cries for attention and help. America appears like a society shackled with its trials and tribulations, the sorrows and frustration of the people who went there, not to steal, but to make an honest living!
Anderson, who has spent his career delving into American history studying its madmen and prophets, is now bold enough to talk about a President, who does not seem fit to lead the world’s most prosperous nation. Yes, he was elected, and I am sure there may be many who voted him to power regretting their actions. Well, let us hope Trump will not try to get another term by tinkering with the Constitution, which allows no more than two terms for each President.
This thriller, narrated in a subtly humorous strain, gripped me, and there was never a dull moment. Bob Ferguson(DiCaprio) has a daughter, Perfidia, who sexually humiliates the commanding officer of a detention centre, played by Sean Penn(as Steven Lockjaw). His anger turns into a mad obsession, and he begins to pursue her. Bob steps in to save his daughter, and so goes the story of survival and revenge.
There is never a dull moment, and the film’s longish 161 minutes flow by smoothly. Well, I never looked at my watch, and it proved how engrossed I was.
The writer is a senior movie critic and author. Views expressed are personal.