"Wiping his eyes, ugh-ing dramatically, hungover literally but also spiritually-as "Bob Ferguson" (the name taken when he goes into hiding with his daughter), DiCaprio lugs his body around like an overstuffed suitcase. Granted, Bob is pretty much perma-slowed by weed, wreathed in marijuana smoke, but still: Sometimes being alive feels like a battle. One after another, even. Just the constant onslaught of happenings to navigate, of problems to helplessly confront, of stimuli to endure. Things come at you non-stop."
"Bob wasn't always so overwhelmed by life, though. He wasn't always Bob Ferguson, either. When One Battle After Another begins, we're introduced to him as "Ghetto" Pat Calhoun, explosives specialist and promising terrorist. Excitable and uncontainable-yelling cliche phrases like "¡Viva la revolución!"-Pat drags a red wagon of incendiaries to his first mission with the French 75, a band of revolutionaries led by the otherworldly badass Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor)."
"That first mission, an early morning rescue of immigrants from a border detention facility, proceeds with the hum and tension of an epic crime thriller. Pat is eager and wild-eyed, bursting with urges: to destroy, to revolt, to grope. He's swiftly entranced by Perfidia, who espouses a radical Black feminist and anarchist ideology that Pat seems to only kinda understand. He hollers about how much he loves Black girls. Together and with their friends, they carve out big changes in the world."
Ghetto Pat Calhoun begins as an excitable explosives specialist and promising revolutionary in a band called the French 75, drawn to Perfidia Beverly Hills and her radical Black feminist anarchist ideology. Early missions, including an immigrant-rescue operation, carry the hum and tension of a crime thriller as Pat burns with urges to destroy and revolt while falling under Perfidia's spell. Subsequent events leave Pat living under the name Bob Ferguson, hiding with his daughter and slowed by marijuana, physically and spiritually drained. Life becomes a relentless sequence of problems and stimuli, rendering everyday existence a weary, ongoing battle.
Read at Portland Mercury
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