One Benicio Del Toro star turn after another

The actor shines this year in 'One Battle After Another' and 'The Phoenician Scheme'

- Uday Bhatia

One Battle After Another has an almost wall-to-wall score. The sonic environment is so heady that all the action seems to vibrate to some unheard music in the character's heads. Late in the film, two cops chase and pull over Sensei Sergio (Benicio Del Toro), who manages to safely eject wanted dissident Pat (Leonardo DiCaprio) from his car. Now, as the cops question him, Sensei, his back to them, does a little dance, gently bouncing on his feet, lifting up his jacket sleeves with the tips of his fingers. It's a comic beat transformed by Del Toro into a gesture of graceful defiance and triumph.

This is how I like to think of Del Toro himself, a quicksilver presence gliding through films. That's how he became famous, as Fenster, one of the thieves in The Usual Suspects (1995), a rogue so charming it didn’t matter you could barely understand a word he said. There have, in the years since, been the kind of roles Hollywood deems more award-worthy—the Mexican police officer in Traffic (2000), the tortured ex-con in 21 Grams (2003), Cuban revolutionary Guevara in Che (2008)—and he’s done well by them all. But I prefer his gangster in The Funeral (1996), his warm Benny in Basquiat (1996), and his manic Dr. Gonzo in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1996)—performances full of joy and risk.