gonzo | ˈɡänzō | adjective informal, mainly North American English 1 relating to or denoting journalism of an exaggerated, subjective, and fictionalized style: a gonzo journalist. 2 very strange or bizarre: he has starred in gonzo action flicks and quiet indie films.
There is often a gonzo quality to the films of Paul Thomas Anderson.
Remember how is camera roamed like a whirling dervish over all the parties in BOOGIE NIGHTS?
And how the hair-trigger temper of Adam Sandler’s character in PUNCH DRUNK LOVE made for one spectacularly volatile love story?
Of course, who could forget the ending of MAGNOLIA as thousands of frogs rained down on Los Angeles, playing as both over-the-top comical and apocalyptic?
Now with his new film ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, PTA brings the gonzo to a timely dark comedy about illegal immigration. Indeed, in the story here, a battle ensues between a revolutionary group fighting the government over their incarceration of those crossing the border illegally and almost every aspect of the film is painted big with a broad brush. It starts at an 11 in gonzo energy and pacing and only goes up from there. At times, as pathos and graphic bloodletting get woven in, the film encounters tonality hiccups. Still, it’s fascinating to watch in all of its excess.
The group of revolutionaries, a chaotic bunch calling themselves the French 75, is led by a brassy and chatty leader named Perfidia (Teyana Taylor). She’s one strident and opinionated militant, bossing all about and providing a running commentary during all their maneuvers. She rags on her lover Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) about ensuring his bombs are strong enough to inflict maximum damage while simultaneously distracting him with her lusty come-ons. She’s so worked up by the missions she wants to screw away some of her excess energy. She’s hilarious, and more than a little frightening.
Bob is quite the opposite of her. He’s a lackadaisical revolutionary, one more in love with Perfidia than their missions. Still, that doesn’t keep him from being an effective bomber. Another who falls for her is her equal on the other side – the fiercely macho and opinionated camp commander Colonel Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn). (That name is not only gonzo but quite on-the-nose too.) Pefidia breaks into his quarters and forces him to masturbate in front of her while her subordinates tie up the military personnel and free the incarcerated. It’s an outrageous scene with Lockjaw being so turned on, he becomes smitten with her. When he goes after her for usurping his command and releasing his camp’s prisoners, he goes ape. Yet, his need for vengeance doesn’t vanquish his lust for her. Soon enough, he tracks Perfidia down and they continue their head games, as well as the crazed sexual interactions in public spaces.
Soon after, Perfidia has the baby that could be Bob’s or Lockjaw’s, and then immediately after that, she escapes capture and goes off the grid. All this forces Bob to go underground where he’s left to raise the baby on his own. The film then flashes forward 16 years to pick up Bob’s story as a single parent living in a small community in the Pacific Northwest with his headstrong daughter Charlene. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree as she is smart, sexy, and full of the same piss and vinegar as her mom. She definitely wears the pants in the family as she takes control of the cooking and every other aspect of their lives while the lazy Bob whiles away the day in front of the TV getting stoned. Still, he did quite the job in raising her.
Newcomer Chase Infiniti plays Charlene and she holds the screen with an ability to play gentle as well as strident. Charline is in charge of every aspect of her life from taking care of her home to organizing her trip to the prom with friends. Then, as she trots off to the dance, Bob gets a call from one of his old revolutionary buddies informing him that Lockjaw and his men have discovered his whereabouts and are coming for him and his daughter. From there, the story turns into one crazy chase with both Bob and Charlene trying to stay out of the clutches of the laser-focused Lockjaw and his battalion of soldiers.
The action that ensues is often funny as hell, and a lot of it is disturbing as hell too. You may find yourself wincing as bodies fall left and right, victims of gunshots to the chest and head, while DiCaprio flits about as a doofus wholly unprepared for such life and death scenarios. He’s a stitch, giving a manic performance, on the run in ratty bathrobe and oversized sunglasses. Benicio del Toro and Regina King play key supporting revolutionaries and friends of Bob’s and both are in fine form too. Tony Goldwyn and Jim Downey show up as elite businessmen running shadow operations in tandem with Lockjaw and their measured malfeasance plays as both silly and sinister.
Still, the two strongest performances in the film are given by Infiniti and Taylor. They make their women warriors fierce and funny. Penn is amusing without sacrificing menace, even if occasionally he overdoes the military man’s macho. Can the veins in a neck overact? But clearly, PTA is going for such satiric excess, giving the material a lot of the feel Stanley Kubrick gave to his classic dark comedy DR. STRANGELOVE. (The distance between that film’s antagonist General Jack D. Ripper and Lockjaw here is a very short walk.) Mostly, all that bluster plays, but when the film turns shockingly violent, it can feel unseemly. And does the incarceration of those seeking asylum or crossing the border for work lend itself so strongly to farce? Are Lockjaw’s men all as villainous as he? The film lacks some nuance.
It would seem this is all part of PTA’s gonzo way of entertaining us, disturbing us, and holding us in his storytelling grasp for over two hours and 40 minutes. There is never a dull moment, and the director’s command over sound design, camera work, and editing is expert. Still, when all is said and done, what may have been whiffed here is PTA’s POV. He seems to be saying both sides are just plain cuckoo. Is that a cop out, suggesting it’s one big crazy world with all parties just rolling with the madness? It certainly fits with his gonzo sensibilities, but it feels almost straight down the middle for a film that wants to play so fervently at the edges.
