My Review of One Battle After Another (2025)

 

Written And Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Bob: "I don't get mad. I don't get mad about anything anymore."

Going to end this year with one more movie review of a 2025 release and I picked an award contender that quite frankly, I didn't care for it. I get that this movie's become a favourite over the last few months but not for me.

A clumsily handled and needlessly political thriller meets satire (because some scenes are just outright ridiculous), you've got Leonardo DiCaprio (an actor I normally like) in a rather unconvincing performance as a burned out and paranoid revolutionary named Bob Ferguson. Years ago he was also known as "Ghetto" Pat Calhoun.

Early in the movie, Bob and his pregnant lover, Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) were a part of the group, French 75. They were freeing immigrants and Perfidia took delight in humiliatingSteven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn). Let's just that Perfidia and Lockjaw would have a very messed up relationship.

Anyways as time progressed, both Bob and Charlene/Willa (Chase Infiniti) settle into a normal life with new identities while Perfidia abandoned her family for more revolutionary antics, got caught and sexually blackmailed by Lockjaw and ended up fleeing into witness protection.

The movie itself focused on Bob's paranoia coming to a head when Willa got herself captured by Lockjaw and it turned out that the latter was her real father. I'll give the movie credit because a relative newcomer like Chase Infiniti held her own in scenes with seasoned actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Regina Hall's Deandra.

Saying that, it didn't stop this movie from being totally off kilter at times, laboriously too long for it's own good with time or even the whole Christmas Adventurers plot fot Lockjaw, which ended in his deserved demise. If there's an upcoming award contender that would've benefitted from a shorter run time, it's this one.

- Benecio del Toro had a decent supporting role as Sergio St. Carlos. I liked him a little more I did Bob.

- Bob was the only person to have a 1G phone that wouldn't have worked in the time period. Of course Willa kept her phone secret from him.

- Standout music: Jon Brion's Bunker Bumper.

- Chronology: Sixteen years passed during the movie. Willa ended up going to a protest in Oakland.

Sometimes you just know when a movie that everyone likes will be a movie that you won't connect with. For me, One Battle After Another was that movie. I knew I wasn't going to like it. I found myself getting increasingly bored as it dragged on and I was relieved when it ended.

Rating: 5 out of 10