One of my daily prayers is for peace, in this country and around the world.  Current events are what bring this supplication into my heart.  As a Catholic, I am proud to call myself a member of a religion with a professed dedication to the dignity and sanctity of all life.  What separates us from what you see in One Battle After Another, particularly early on, is that certain revolutionary forces are willing to resort to violence to achieve their goals.  What unites us is a desire to see positive change in the world.  One should not seek out martyrdom, but it should be accepted if God blesses you with such an opportunity.  That may sound extreme, but there are many ways of giving your life to a cause.  I wish more people would see the world in this manner and not resort to harming people or property in support of their causes.  In the meantime, I will review this movie.

The cause in One Battle After Another is that of the French 75, an underground band of revolutionaries dedicated to violently resisting what they see as the fascist regime in the United States.  The first target of theirs that we see is a detention camp for illegal aliens near the border with Mexico.  It is during the planning phase that we see “Ghetto” Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) meet.  They are immediately drawn to one another, but they have separate duties in their raid designed to free the prisoners.  While he is to provide a diversion using his expertise with explosives, she is to go in through the back of the compound to secure the guards.  In doing so, she comes face-to-face with Colonel Stephen J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn).  Perfidia cynically teases the soldier, noticing that he is aroused by her presence in spite of his evil intent.  She marches him out to put with the others, but he warns that it is not the last she will see of him.  With that, the French 75 complete their mission.  From there, we see Pat and Perfidia carry out a series of acts of domestic terrorism while also getting romantically involved.  However, during an attempt to blow up a government building, Colonel Lockjaw bursts in on Perfidia as she is assembling dynamite in a bathroom stall.  He threatens to turn her in unless they meet up at a hotel for some inappropriate behavior.  She goes through with it, and not long thereafter, she is pregnant.  This is getting ahead of the story, but it is a little obvious that he is the father, though Pat believes the baby girl is his.  Pat throws himself into fatherhood, but Perfidia sees the cause as more important than motherhood.  Instead of being content with their family, she continues to with their field work.  It is as other members of the French 75 are robbing a bank that everything changes.  When one of the hostages refuses to stop moving, Perfidia shoots and kills the man.  The sets off many alarm bells, forcing them to split up and attempt an escape.  The car in which Perfidia is fleeing gets into a wreck.  She runs, but eventually the police catch her.  During her interrogation by Colonel Lockjaw, he says he can get her a cushy deal in witness protection and avoid jail if she will name her co-conspirators.  Remarkably, she agrees, but as soon as she is left alone, she escapes into Mexico.  Colonel Lockjaw had been about to bring her flowers, but instead finds an insulting note.  Meanwhile, members of the French 75 scatter.  Pat and his newborn become Bob and Willa Ferguson.  He is provided with a set of instructions and they are off.  Sixteen years pass and Bob and Willa (Chase Infiniti) have settled into a somewhat normal life in Colorado.  Though his revolutionary days are in the past, he still tries to make sure she is learning the correct history in high school.  He has also begun consuming large quantities of alcohol and marijuana to the point that she feels like his babysitter.  At the same time, Colonel Lockjaw has been approached by a secretive organization of highly placed white supremacists called the Christmas Adventurers, who offer him guaranteed power and wealth for his services in cracking down on people illegally coming over the border.  As he is interviewed for the position, he is asked whether he has ever consorted with anyone of color.  He lies, which they seem to accept, but they tell him they are going to do an investigation.  He hopes to get in front of the inquiry, hiring a bounty hunter named Avanti (Eric Schweig) to find a member of French 75.  After applying some nefarious pressure, Colonel Lockjaw discovers the city in which Pat and Charlene Calhoun (Willa’s birthname) are living.  Under the guise of an immigration raid, Colonel Lockjaw’s forces invade the town.  They do so on the same night as a school dance, but Willa is spirited away by French 75 representative Deandra (Regina Hall).  The organization also warns Pat, but his years of substance abuse have rendered him unable to remember all the protocols.  Instead, he seeks help from Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), Willa’s martial arts instructor.  As it turns out, he has been running an underground immigration ring, so he is willing to help a fellow member of the resistance.  Unfortunately, as his people are trying to get him out, Pat has a fall and is picked up by the authorities.  Yet, he is given a release by one of Sergio’s compatriots, and Sergio gets Pat and take him to the rendezvous point that had finally been given by the French 75.  That place is an odd one to this Catholic.  It is a nunnery, at least owing to the fact that the only people who live there are women and they wear a habit.  What makes it strange is that they grow marijuana and own firearms.  In any case, Colonel Lockjaw is able to track Willa to this location, where he forces her to do a paternity test.  When it comes up positive for him being the father, he takes her to Avanti for disposal.  Avanti is not comfortable with this arrangement and eventually lets her loose.  As she is making her getaway, she is followed by Tim Smith (John Hoogenakker), a Christmas Adventurer assassin sent to do away with her and Colonel Lockjaw when they learn the truth.  Willa cleverly turns the tables on Tim, forcing him to crash and the killing him when he gets out of the car.  Pat, who had been trailing the entire time, finally catches up and they are reunited.  Colonel Lockjaw is later murdered by the Christmas Adventurers, and Pat and Willa return to their previous lives, though a little more politically engaged.

I hope my synopsis of One Battle After Another engaged you, even if it was a little longer than usual.  That is a function of the film itself, which is over two and a half hours in its runtime.  You feel those hours at times, even though there is an almost breathless pace to the action.  There are precious few moments for the characters to rest as the events are as the title suggests.  In the beginning, it is a string of acts of domestic terrorism.  In the second half, it is Willa trying to escape captivity and Pat attempting to find her.  As I pointed out in the introduction, I do not approve of the violence, but there is something Catholic in the meaning of the title.  Though I would have liked to have seen her handle it differently, Perfidia sees the struggle as endless.  Though Catholicism is not the only religion that sees life in this manner, the Church acknowledges that life is not going to stop sending you struggles.  Most of us will never be involved in the kinds of activities you see in the movie, but that should not diminish their significance.  It also means that you have to pick yourself up again if something does not go as you hope.  Defeat in this life is only temporary, and Jesus’ experiences are a testament to that fact.  If you have a cause and it is just, you cannot give up on it at the first sign of trouble.  It is a lesson that Pat had to relearn through his daughter, and one I hope you can take away from this theme.

At the same time, it is hard to take away anything positive from One Battle After Another.  For a set of supposedly hardcore revolutionaries, the French 75 are surprisingly willing to turn on one another when in custody and threatened.  In the introduction I talked about martyrs, and none of them appear willing to die for their cause.  This Catholic would posit that this is because they are performing acts that may have the correct intent, but are carried out in an ungodly manner. Catholicism does not teach that the ends justify the means.  At the same time, I could not help but feel some sympathy for the French 75’s first mission.  I can take such a stance because in recent months the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has spoken out against the current administration’s treatment of the kinds of people you see at the beginning.  The organization supports immigration reform, but makes it clear that the kind of internment you see in the movie is contradictory to their human rights and dignity as people.  Name another group that is rounded up and put into open air cages and given little else while they await transport to a country from which they may, or may not, have come.  Again, as hinted at before, the Church does not approve of using violence to address this kind of abuse.  At the same time, the powers that be should be made aware through other means that treating any human being in this way is unacceptable.  If that makes Catholicism revolutionary, then so be it.  It would not be the first time in history it has been given such a label.

The label I would give One Battle After Another is mixed.  I support the principle of some of what is discussed in the film, but I cannot get behind the means by which they try to accomplish it.  I am pleased that it has a happy ending, but I had trouble with a lot of what led up to it.  It has a great cast, but a frenetic pace that gives precious time to their performances.  Thus, I leave this one up to your judgement.