By Herman M. Lagon

This piece is not for those who have not seen “One Battle After Another.” Spoilers ahead. Released in late 2025, it quickly found its way into debates, chats and classrooms. By the 98th Academy Awards, it had won six of 13 nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. I did not watch it for comfort. I watched it for that uneasy recognition — the feeling that the film was holding up a mirror and saying, “This is where we are.”

From its brash opening, the film refuses to settle: A radical cell called the French 75 raids institutions tied to immigration enforcement, driven by belief, bravado and bad timing. At the center is Perfidia Beverly Hills, magnetic and volatile, binding people together and tearing them apart in the same breath. A betrayal splits the group. A child is born into the fallout. Then time jumps, and the past does not fade; it ferments.

Sixteen years later, Pat lives as Bob, raising his daughter Willa while practicing the exhausting art of passing for “normal.” Lockjaw returns with upgraded authority, less a lone villain than a functionary of a bigger machine. The story turns into a chase and a search that keeps swerving between dread and absurdity. Allies appear at the edges — people who do not deliver speeches, but move bodies to safety while the state tightens its grip on a sanctuary city. The ending divides viewers: a letter, a coda, a hint that the next generation might choose differently. There is no victory lap, only motion. Another battle, not the last.

I get why some call the tone inconsistent. The film asks us to sit with real harms — state violence, racism, paranoia — then breaks the tension with slapstick and throwaway jokes. The body braces, then the film winks. For me, that is not a flaw; it is familiar. We joke during brownouts, laugh in SSS lines, trade memes while prices climb. Humor does not erase harm; it cohabits with it. The film is coherent even when it is not consistent. Absurdity and terror share the same room. The laugh lands because it is nervous, because the fear underneath is real.

This is where Leonardo DiCaprio shines. His Pat, then Bob, is not a hero who drives outcomes. He forgets passwords, drops phones, hesitates, and still shows up. Some complain that the plot would move without him. I read that as the point. History drags ordinary people first; agency comes later, if at all. DiCaprio’s physical comedy is not garnish. It is human frailty under pressure, the body telling the truth before the mind catches up. I felt the same uneasy admiration I felt watching him in “Don’t Look Up” (2021): men who see late, speak imperfectly, and insist on care anyway. The folly here is not stupidity; it is delay.

Sean Penn’s “Lockjaw” fuels another argument. Some wanted him to linger as an unkillable symbol of racism. The film makes a colder claim. “Lockjaw” is a tool, replaceable within a hierarchy that rewards obedience and discards underlings. Strip the uniform and the dignity goes with it; the danger persists because the system persists. For a country used to recycled strongmen and familiar slogans, that hits close to home. Institutions reproduce villains faster than any one story can end them.

The ending takes heat, and fairly. The letter and coda feel gentler than what came before. Questions about plausibility surface. Why does hope arrive at all? I do not read it as comfort. I read it as agency. The film shifts from individual bravado to generational choice. Willa does not inherit certainty; she inherits responsibility. The hope is not that problems fix themselves, but that people act as if repair is possible. That is not a bow; it is a wager — one teacher understands when they keep planning lessons despite the news.

Criticisms about thin characterization, especially around Perfidia and Deandra, also deserve respect. The film withholds backstory, forcing faces to carry weight words never explain. Some see caricature; others see deliberate gaps that make us sit with uncertainty. The discomfort around sex, power and race is real. Whether the film crosses a line depends on the viewer’s threshold. What matters is that the discomfort is not accidental. It reflects a culture that commodifies bodies while preaching order, and that tension is not easy to stage cleanly.

Technically, the film hums without showboating. The chases serve the story. The camera stays close enough to catch panic and wide enough to show systems at work. The score nudges rather than lectures. Is it revolutionary craft? No. It is intention over spectacle, which matters more. Box-office math has little to say about relevance in a streaming-first world. Adult political films now live longer lives — through rewatches, debates and delayed appreciation. Early praise sharpens over time; the tonal shock softens on a second pass.

For our local viewers, the relevance is the point. Like “Don’t Look Up,” this is satire as civic mirror. It refuses the fantasy that crises announce themselves politely. It insists that waiting for perfect clarity is a choice. I do not deny the film’s flaws: pacing drags, some threads beg for depth, the tonal braid will repel as many as it attracts. Still, “One Battle After Another” feels like a DiCaprio high-water mark because it respects attention without flattering it. It does not preach. It shows people showing up imperfectly, choosing care amid chaos. The joke is not on the audience. It is on our habit of waiting. The film ends in motion because the work continues. Another battle, yes. Also another chance.

***

Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with./WDJ