The city of El Paso takes center stage in director Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another.”
The film follows the fanatical, even surrealistic journey of washed-up revolutionary Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio), who lives in hiding with his teenage daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) some 15 years after his militant group French 75 went underground. When their nemesis Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) resurfaces, Bob and Willa again find themselves running from the law. When Willa goes AWOL, her karate teacher, Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), is enlisted to help Bob find his daughter.
Although ambitious, edgy and fun, the political message of the hit film is generally muddled. The immensely talented director did not make a film matching the leftist rigor of, say, “Battleship Potemkin.” Nor can the film be grouped among a veritable cavalcade of films produced during the last 20 years that deal with immigrant issues along the U.S.-Mexico Border. “Sleep Dealer,” “El Norte” and “Who is Dayani Cristal?” are but a few stronger offerings of this cinematic cottage industry.
Nevertheless, the film leans heavy into Latino culture in terms of themes, setting and characters. Filmed largely in El Paso, we meet Sergio, who describes his work helping migrants cross the border as a “Latino Harriet Tubman situation.”…