DiCaprio’s Anti-Hero in One Battle After Another Takes Center Stage
- Sep 15, 2025
- 3 min read
15 September 2025
Leonardo DiCaprio has just stepped into one of his most unusual roles yet in One Battle After Another, the upcoming film by Paul Thomas Anderson. In a recent interview he described his character Bob Ferguson as the “opposite of Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible”. Ferguson is flawed messy and far from the sleek action-hero mold fans are used to seeing in blockbuster spies.
The movie is adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland. In it a group of former revolutionaries are forced to reunite 16 years after their cause was thought dead. They must confront a dangerous enemy that reemerges and in DiCaprio’s case his character is thrust into action when his daughter is kidnapped. He is a father who has not been preparing for this kind of moment and DiCaprio says Ferguson gets almost everything wrong. When it comes to stunts or heroic gestures he is often late or fails spectacularly. Yet it is Ferguson’s deep fear love and imperfect devotion that give him a kind of authenticity that pure spectacle cannot match.
DiCaprio joked in the interview that while Cruise’s characters often nail every move stick every landing and approach danger with calculated skill, Ferguson fumbles. He might have a bathrobe still around when it is time to run. He is peeling off wrong masks answering the wrong calls and scrambling rather than striking poses. He is messy because life has been messy. He is hurting because he has not been ready for what happens. When his daughter is taken Bob has to scramble even when he knows he is out of his depth. That is not just drama. That is what gives One Battle After Another its unexpected tension and its heart.
Behind him is a starry ensemble. Regina Hall plays Deandra, Benicio del Toro is Sergio, Sean Penn also joins, and Teyana Taylor plays another major role. Victoria Infinity has her film debut. The cast has spoken highly of Anderson’s direction. Hall said that even though her part is serious and often emotional there is a mix of wit humor and strong messaging in the script. Anderson’s films are known for characters who breathe truth and contradiction. In One Battle After Another no role feels simple or secondary. Even the smaller characters shimmer with complexity.
Benicio del Toro in particular has said that working with DiCaprio has shaped his own performance. He shared that DiCaprio’s presence in each scene invites others to find deeper shades in their own characters. Hall echoed that filming under Anderson felt like being part of something almost electric. The script lets actors play moments of extreme tension next to moments of absurd comedy. It lets the audience hold its breath then laugh then freeze then breathe again.
The film is set to hit theaters September 26, 2025. Early reactions already suggest this will not be just another action film. Critics and cast alike are pointing to the film’s unusual blend of action drama character work and personal ruin challenge. It is described as messy in the best way. It is imperfect because perfection would have been boring. It is daring in how it asks what happens when a hero is not ready.
DiCaprio himself has hinted that at 50 he is less interested in playing the perfect hero more interested in the human myth behind heroism. With One Battle After Another he leans into roles that demand failure fear and vulnerability. Audiences know him for chiseled tension and charismatic authority. In Ferguson they get instead a man trying to find strength in the face of loss. It is not always graceful but it is more real.
There is also something sharp about how this film asks questions about legacy politics and action. Revolutionaries are not mere action figures. They carry scars and regrets. They carry ideals that sometimes hurt as much as they heal. The film asks whether you can ever walk away from one’s past. Whether you can ever be a “good” parent when history has shaped you into something un-pure. DiCaprio’s performance is at the center of all this. He plays not with glamour but with texture error and human ruin. That approach may well define his next chapter.
By turning away from the polished hero and stepping into a character who fails where heroes usually win DiCaprio is embracing risk. He is opening up vulnerability in a film industry that often rewards spectacle. He is saying that there is dignity in failing. There is story in falling short. One Battle After Another will ask its audience not just who wins against enemies but who survives the collapse of expectations. And DiCaprio’s role suggests that sometimes survival is heroism enough.
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