As part of our currently nightly movie streak, we watched One Battle After Another.

Dicaprio, Penn, Del Toro, etc. A (very long) dark comedy-thriller about far-left terrorists and white supremacists.

Neither me nor my husband were a fan of this one at all.

-Didn't like or sympathize with almost any character (other than the teenager).

-But I also didn't find it that funny or interesting, and no character really captured a scene.

In a movie like No Country for Old Men, I didn't particularly get emotionally attached to any character either, but they're all super interesting on-screen, especially the villain. Penn plays a villain here (Colonel Lockjaw) that is both menacing and goofy, but while the writing and acting of Hans Landa in Inglorious Bastards really nails that combo, I didn't feel that way for Lockjaw. It was more jarring.

Overall acting was fine, given the quality of the actors. But no role was particularly memorable. Nothing really stood out for the cinematography or the musical score, and I didn't particularly like the writing. And several aspects seemed unrealistic in what feels like it's trying to be a fairly realistic movie.

I suspect the main issue is that on one hand, they want to capture that kind of dark-funny nihilistic vibe that several Coen brothers movies have (e.g. Fargo). But they don't quite want to fully commit to that nihilism either, and instead really do want us to emotionally attach to several of the characters here, and straddling that line didn't work for me.