Leonardo DiCaprio in 'One Battle After Another.' Courtesy of Warner Bros. Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment One Battle After Another is, as the refrain goes on social media, "the movie of the year." Paul Thomas Anderson's propulsive, nearly three-hour loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's Vineland starring Leonardo DiCaprio has been the rare grown-up drama that's drawn enormous critical praise, high audience scores, and solid box office - crossing the $100 million mark worldwide to score the biggest opening of Anderson's career. Given that the film is also intensely political - telling the tale of a burned out revolutionary (DiCaprio) who endeavors to save his daughter (Chase Infiniti) from a white nationalist military officer (Sean Penn) - it's perhaps surprising there hasn't been more noise so far from those on the right. The film opens with a celebratory raid on an ICE facility to free detainees, and shows government agents coldly executing unarmed suspects and sending an undercover agent into a peaceful protest to throw a Molotov cocktail to justify increased force. Related Stories Movies How P.T. Anderson Channeled Thomas Pynchon's Preoccupations for 'One Battle After Another' Movies How Paul Thomas Anderson's 'One Battle After Another' Brought Leonardo DiCaprio to TikTok One suspects a three-hour indie drama about left-wing rebels doesn't draw the same level of interest from conservative moviegoers as, say, a remake of a family classic like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. But there are some grumblings out there that contend the film, which Anderson had worked on for decades, is actually the wrong film at the wrong time rather than vice versa. "You can make excuses for it, but basically the [film is] an apologia for radical left-wing terrorism, that's what it is," said Ben Shapiro, who predicted the film will win "all the Academy Awards" due to its politics. "It has the subtlety of a brick ... The basic suggestion is a conspiracy theory in which the United States is run by white supremacist Christian nationalists and all people of color and a few nice incompetent fellow travelers like [DiCaprio's character] are going to take on that entire system. And that system must be taken on at the cost of family, at the cost of friendship, at the cost of decency, at the cost of basic human capacity for success. It is better, in other words, to be a complete loser who wastes your life bombing things randomly in order to free illegal immigrants to run willy-nilly across the border than to be a productive citizen." "For this movie to make any sense at all, one has to believe the United States, today, right now, is a fascist dictatorship," wrote David Marcus at Fox News, under a headline that dubbed the film an "ill-timed apologia for left-wing violence." "That is not only a dangerous fallacy but, as we have found out recently, a deadly one ... The whole movie made me a little angry, but then I remembered that the Trump administration is cracking down on Antifa - today's very real domestic terrorists - and maybe this will be a fun movie for them to watch once they are all in jail." "It's a macabre coincidence that One Battle After Another opens so soon after the assassination of peaceable conservative debater Charlie Kirk," wrote The National Review under a headline predicting "there will be bloodlust" provoked by the movie. "The film undeniably romanticizes political assassination ... Anderson intentionally provokes the bloodlust of his woke confreres (and Gen Z viewers who know nothing about the Sixties) by celebrating the insipid, heretical, and violent activities of the liberal past and present. Anderson's title lacks Pynchon's pith but daydreams a culture of never-ending political obstruction and pandemonium. It is the year's most irresponsible movie." "Watching One Battle After Another may not be entertaining, but its celebration of vitriol and murder is clarifying," opined The Blaze. "This is not the usual 'anti-conservative' Hollywood bias. When the perpetually sweaty DiCaprio shouts '¡Viva la revolución!' while detonating bombs, you're meant to cheer. And if you're not cheering, well, those bombs are meant for you ...
Increasingly, Hollywood views half the country not as fellow citizens with outdated beliefs, but as enemies who deserve punishment. Owning firearms, favoring borders, voting differently - these aren't policy differences; they're treated as moral crimes, grounds for extermination." Many critics have framed the film rather differently and maintain its politics play more like a satirical fantasy - from its conspiratorial white supremacist cabal to its ultra-organized French Resistance-style left-wing network to Col. Lockjaw's cartoonish Dr. Strangelove-style demeanor. The opening flashback of rebels attacking attacking a detention