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All of the reviews are saying this is great.

I am not going to contradict them. The characterisation is really strong, the narrative is simple yet sophisticated and the construction of some of the scenes is just genius. 

Where I differ from some of the critics and (judging by the laughter in my screening) a lot of the audience, is that I didn’t find it much fun. Contributing to this is the fact that at two hours and forty minutes it is also indulgently long.

Here’s the thing. One Battle After Another has a big cast but there are probably only four players that the whole thing hangs around and this is where it lives or dies. How much you enjoy these central performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti is going to influence the extent to which you like the film. I give it one out of four.

DiCaprio is playing another hapless hero, very similar to those in his last three movies Killers of the Flower Moon, Look Up and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and, deliberately or otherwise, he’s a bit of a frustrating presence. We also have Penn’s antagonist Colonel Lockjaw. He is fascinating but he is abhorrent (this is definitely deliberate) and I did not find the humour in his actions that some have. It’s a calmly showy performance but for me the yuck outweighed the yuks and I found it unsettling. 

Then there is the volatile Perfidia Beverly Hills played by Taylor. She and DiCaprio’s Bob are partners in an anarchist anti immigration group and the woman is a raging fireball of self righteous self destruction. She’s captivating but infuriating and almost impossible to route for. Her actions early set everything in motion but her selfishness is hard to sanction and not easy to watch.

Thank goodness then for Chase Infiniti, whose name sounds like the most hopeless instruction you could ever give anyone (apart from maybe Buzz Lightyear). She gives the movie heart at a time when it most needs it and if I’m honest she saves the film. There is an extended sequence in the denouement, culminating with the most incredibly tense road chase. It is brilliantly plotted and so skilfully directed but without her it has none of its power. If this film is great it is because of her. It’s good but she makes it better, like the jalapeños in a spicy margarita. Of course I credit director Paul Thomas Anderson with all of this, he put her in his mix and he put her in that car at the end but, even with the movie’s topical real world concerns, if I hadn’t cared about her I wouldn’t have cared about any of it and I don’t think that is what he was going for.

I do have to commend the involvement of Benicio Del Toro too, he is also very good. As it is though his presence only draws out a further issue. As one of the regular company of this director’s namesake Wes Anderson, Del Toro’s inclusion cemented the feeling I had that in places this doesn’t feel a million miles away from one of his movies. P. T. Anderson most certainly has his own auteur credentials but while this is still not derivative it does feel slightly reminiscent of other filmmakers work, and good or for bad I’d not have levelled that at this Anderson before. There is shot of a pregnant Perfidia firing a machine gun from sideways on (no spoiler, it’s on one of the posters) that feels very Wes. If I’m honest I’m not sure there isn’t a bit of early Coens in here too.

With all of these comparisons, this felt like a little cinematic yarn akin to the work of those other directors and not the new American epic it wanted to be.

Great then yes, but not perfect.

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