“Paul Thomas Anderson did himself no favors when he shot a scene in which Leonardo DiCaprio‘s character is shown watching The Battle of Algiers, possibly the greatest political film ever made.
“The contrast between Gillo Pontecorvo‘s brilliantly realistic and nuanced masterpiece and PTA’s slick but essentially meaningless satire could not be more extreme. One has something meaningful to say about revolutionary violence, colonialism and their effects. The other is basically a caper film with aspirations to say something about our present-day political crisis, but fails to do so.
“Benicio del Toro‘s ‘Sensei’ character is the only character who’s actually doing something of benefit, given his work with the undocumented. Just about everyone else is portrayed as a foul-mouthed, charged-rhetoric revolutionary or, in the case of Sean Penn, a rigidly violent and racist nut job. Well, that’s not true — Chase Infiniti‘s Willa Ferguson is untainted by insurrectionist fervor, and is fairly compelling on her otwn terms.
“I didn’t hate One Battle After Another — it’s too well made for that. But it’s been wildly over-rated.”
