Commentary: ‘One Battle After Another’ Exemplifies The Value Of Shorter Films
by Frank Martin
Film runtimes have always been a hot topic for movie buffs. Certain genres seem to fall within a certain range of lengths. Animated films, genre horror movies, and comedies tend to be on the shorter side with a 90-minute as benchmark. Dramas and action films tend to be around two hours, which appears to be a good average for most movies. However, seasoned directors and films with a lot of plot often drift upwards into two-and-a-half hours, three hours, and even longer. Some films with longer runtimes are barely noticeable, but this isn’t the norm. Most often, a two-hour length is very suitable for the story being told, which is the case with One Battle After Another.
The film is a satire on authoritarianism as Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) seeks to institute martial law in an American city in order to hide an interracial child he may have inadvertently fathered sixteen years earlier. This child is being raised by Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio), who is a former revolutionary and believes he is the actual father. The child, Willa Ferguson (Chase Infiniti), is kidnapped by Lockjaw but manages to escape, all while Bob searches for her.
During the film’s climax, there’s a long car chase involving Willa and a member of a secret white nationalist organization Lockjaw seeks to join. Realizing she is being followed, Willa stops her car on top of a blind hill, causing her pursuer to crash. The chase before that moment is unnecessarily long, and given that it takes place on a single road with no turns, there wasn’t much to do except have the characters drive straight at high speeds. This scene, as well as a host of others, could have been cut down and trimmed to bring the films overall runtime closer to the two-hour mark rather than the two-hours-and-forty-five-minutes that it was. Over the past decade, films have increased in length, forcing audiences to get used to movies with bloated storytelling. Two hours was the norm for a reason, and movies should do everything they can to return to it.
One Battle After Another is now streaming on HBO Max.
