One Battle After Another Review: A Coked-Up DiCaprio is Always The Funniest; PTA at His Wildest

Straight Into the Fire

There is no gentle introduction here. You are hurled headfirst into Anderson’s world. The opening takes place inside the Otay Messa Immigration Detention Center where Perfidia Beverly Hills, played with a mix of coolness and ferocity by Teylana Taylor, is strolling with unnerving calm.

Within minutes we are at the US Mexico border where the revolutionary group French 75 is plotting its rebellion against capitalist establishments. Their plan is explosive, literally, involving banks and buildings that stand as symbols of power.

Anderson does not let you breathe in these opening sequences. Before you even adjust, we meet Bob Ferguson played by Leonardo DiCaprio, watch sparks fly between him and Perfidia, and then witness the group release detainees in a Mexican border facility.

This would already be enough for most films, but Anderson then throws in Colonel Steven Lockjaw played by Sean Penn, a character whose dangerous magnetism complicates the entire equation. By the time French 75 collapses after a careless bank robbery, Perfidia is arrested and the so called movement is finished, the audience is still catching up.

Sixteen Years Later, the Madness Doubles

What follows is even messier. The group has gone underground. Bob and his daughter Charlene, portrayed by Chase Infiniti, try to create a semblance of a normal life though chaos seems stitched into their very existence. Lockjaw, however, has not disappeared. He has waited sixteen years like a patient predator and is now ready to hunt.

But Anderson refuses to give you a clean revenge saga. Questions bubble everywhere. Is Charlene truly Bob and Perfidia’s daughter. Where exactly has Perfidia gone. And what in the world is the bizarre Christmas Adventurers Club that Lockjaw is obsessed with.

Anderson happily plays both coy and generous, throwing answers and red herrings in equal measure. What results is a labyrinth of pulse racing situations that are as funny as they are terrifying.

A Cat and Mouse Game on Acid

On paper, One Battle After Another looks almost generic. A revolutionary group implodes. A fugitive family hides. A colonel hunts them. But Anderson transforms this into a cat and mouse game dripping with high octane urgency and surreal tension. His characters are not just running. They are sprinting headfirst into insanity with no brakes.

This is why the film is such a surprising fit for the IMAX format. When people say IMAX, they often think of Marvel scale spectacles or James Cameron’s blue hued epics. Anderson instead uses the format to immerse you in car chases, frantic streets, and claustrophobic rooms.

He shoots with an obsession that no frame should ever sit still. The car sequences are particularly insane. Every swerve, every desperate turn, every risky choice feels magnified to the point that your seat seems bolted inside the vehicle.

DiCaprio on a Coke High Is Cinema Gold

And then there is Leonardo DiCaprio. A coked up DiCaprio might just be the most entertaining DiCaprio, and I say that with full conviction. We saw flashes of this in The Wolf of Wall Street, and here as Bob Ferguson, he doubles down.

He is erratic, unhinged, hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking, and somehow relatable even as he makes one bad decision after another.

There is a particular scene where Bob tries to call a fellow French 75 member. In another film, this would be pure exposition. Here, it becomes one of the funniest phone calls you will watch all year.

DiCaprio fumbles, rants, spirals, and transforms a conversation into chaos comedy at its peak. It is like watching a man try to juggle live grenades while also reciting a joke, and every drop is hysterical.

The Comic Underbelly of the Chaos

Anderson deserves credit for sneaking humor into places you least expect it. Beneath all the detonations, robberies, and shootouts, this film is secretly one of the funniest of the year. The second half in particular plays like absurdist satire disguised as thriller cinema. The dynamic between DiCaprio’s Bob and Benicio Del Toro’s Mr. Sensei is a treat.

Del Toro makes Sensei feel like a half imagined figure. He is always on the move, never still, as though standing still would make him disappear.

Watching him collide with DiCaprio in scene after scene feels like two hyperactive kids playing tag on a minefield. You never know which explosion is coming next, but you know it will be explosive and hilarious.

Sean Penn Will Creep Into Your Dreams

Sean Penn as Colonel Lockjaw is another highlight, though in a very different register. He is not the loud villain with an evil cackle. Lockjaw is quiet, unsettling, and disturbingly petty.

Penn layers him with menace that crawls into your stomach. You do not just dislike him, you despise him. And he never needs to shout to get there.

Anderson frames Lockjaw’s weirdness with deliberate care. Sometimes he feels like a nightmare figure. Other times he feels pathetically human. This slippery unpredictability is exactly what makes him so memorable. You leave the theater not just entertained but haunted by his presence.

The Supporting Sparks

While DiCaprio and Penn grab attention, the supporting cast is equally crucial. Chase Infiniti as Charlene or Willa, depending on how you read the film, strikes the right balance between confusion and bravery. She steadies Bob’s chaos with strength that makes their father daughter dynamic weirdly touching. Regina Hall as Deandra also sharpens the ensemble with her precise presence. Even characters who appear briefly add texture to Anderson’s world of madness.

A Runtime That Flies, Names That Slur

Clocking in at 2 hours and 42 minutes, the film might sound like a test of patience. And admittedly, the first hour is slow, almost deliberately sluggish. But once it finds rhythm, the film never lets go. The last 90 minutes are full throttle, with each sequence trying to top the previous one in sheer frenzy.

And then there is the running gag of endless ghetto and street names being dropped. It is so relentless that you could create a drinking game around it. You would be tipsy by the midpoint, plastered by the third act, and probably passed out before the credits. It is one of the few films where even the names become part of the delirium.

Adaptation With a Twist

Anderson has adapted Pynchon before with Inherent Vice. That film leaned heavy into paranoia and disorientation. One Battle After Another is less faithful in spirit but more alive in energy. It feels like Anderson read Pynchon and decided to stage it as a circus teetering over the abyss.

The messiness is intentional. He finds meaning in the chaos, clarity in confusion, and laughter in horror. By rejecting strict fidelity, he captures Pynchon’s sensibility in a more vibrant way.