One Battle After Another (2025)

Along with Quentin Tarantino, and arguably Steven Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the last great auteurs from the 90s independent movement still making culturally relevant films today. Widely considered by critics as one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation, his canon is held in extremely high regard. From the wild exuberance of 'Boogie Nights' (1997) to the towering 'There Will Be Blood' (2007), to the criminally underrated 'The Master' (2012) this is someone capable of a wide range of cinematic brilliance and as such, most of his releases are met with intense anticipation among movie-lovers. 

Enter 'One Battle After Another': the director's first collaboration with international icon Leonardo DiCaprio and backed by a whopping $175M budget to play with. This promised to be Anderson's biggest swing for the fences yet. Indeed Warner Bros press release kit promised 'an all-out action thriller' and the thought of a director of this magnitude with that much money to throw around might be a very special thing indeed. Thus efforts were made, and babysitters secured, to see this thing how it was intended - on the big silver screen.

Set in a dystopian and not-too-unlike-our-current-political-climate alternate reality, DiCaprio plays a former revolutionary called Ghetto Pat Calhoun (wacky unrealistic name alert) who has spent the last 16 years raising his daughter, smoking joints and drinking heavily, and changing his name to Bob. The reason he is raising her alone is because the girl's mother, named Perfidia Beverly Hills (wacky unrealistic name alert pt II) was also a revolutionary back in the day who is now in the witness protection program. This is the first problem of the film. Despite the efforts of Teyana Taylor in this role, her character - an integral one to the story in terms of emotional involvement - is little more than a cliché who apparently only lives to shoot guns, talk slick, and be an absolute sexpot. She vaguely leads the ragtag band of revolutionaries, and can't help but get incredibly horny in the process. What exactly this revolutionary group, known as the French 75, is against is never made overtly clear. You could argue they are in the business of freeing illegally detained immigrants and there's a speech in there about free borders, or something, but none of it really explains why they blow up a multitude of multi-storey car parks, or take out power lines covering LA, or rob banks. The actions don't line up to any sort of political ideology and instead reek of the director making them do these things because they are simply 'badasses'. Which speaks to the shallowness on display almost from the opening minute and unfortunately continues throughout the next 2 hours and 49. It is an exercise in style over substance. 

16 years later their nemesis - Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (wacky unrealistic name alert pt III), played by Sean Penn - decides he wants to join a high-powered secret society and thus has to eradicate all of the French 75 from human history, which largely involves hunting and killing them one by one. But wait, there's more. After a very wacky and bizarre relationship with Perfidia Beverly Hills back in the day, it turns out that Penn might actually be the father of DiCaprio's child. A fact that would highly compromise his position within this secret society and so he must find her and kill her at all costs. If this all sounds like a lot of pomp and pretense, that's because it is. It might work if we in some way cared about Colonel Steven J Lockjaw, or saw him in any way as multi-dimensional, but instead Penn plays this character to cartoonish levels and there are times where the experience is genuinely like watching a live-action episode of Road Runner. You're almost waiting to Penn to accidentally mistaken a dynamite stick for an ice-pop, get blown to smithereens, and grumble "grrrrrr...sasssafrasss...." under his breath. Again, if this sounds confusing, one-dimensional and dull, it is, again, because it is. 

In fact the entire film could be best surmised by the same adjectives. All of it confusing, all of it one-dimensional and all of it, disappointingly, quite dull as a result. It is hard to care about any of these characters because of the complete lack of depth. Thus a scene like the car chase at the end, instead of being gripping, ends up merely being monotonous. Even DiCaprio, who is essentially on a quest for most of the film to reunite with his daughter, doesn't give you anything to root for, instead he falls into what seems to now be his 'thing' at this juncture in his career - this beleaguered, falling apart at the seams, desperate guy he seems to be pulling out at every turn. Some of it is funny, no doubt, but there's nothing sympathetic about anyone involved, and this leaves for a very empty movie-going experience.

Admittedly, there is some top-tier filmmaking on display, particularly during a 30 minute sequence somewhere in the middle featuring the irrepressible Benecio Del Toro. Such is the quality on display that it is as if you've suddenly dropped into a different film altogether. One where you actually care what's happening, one where you actually feel something for the people involved. Part of this is because of how closely it mirrors what is going on in America in 2025, but mostly because there are actual stakes with actual people. As such, there is a brief moment where the filmmaking matches up with the story and it really soars - to the point that you wish the cameras would just follow Del Toro for the rest of the film. Unfortunately this does not come to pass, and we are left with a baggy, drawn out conclusion that goes exactly where you think it will. There may be distractions and wackiness aplenty to give the impression of off-kilter excitement, but in actual fact nothing much happens. Again, this is pointedly true of the entire endeavour. Nothing much actually happens, there is not much to care about and, as a result, it feels like you're on a bullet train to nowhere. 

To it's credit, there is enough forward momentum achieved that the near three-hour running time goes by at a relatively quick clip and, if nothing else, Paul Thomas Anderson knows how to make a film so it is executed with a level of technical prowess few people can achieve. There are many stunning moments of cinematography to enjoy and there are some set-pieces that are truly awe-inspiring. All of which only increases the disappointment felt when the credits roll. After a string of well-liked, but relatively small, films ('Inherent Vice' (2014), 'Phantom Thread' (2017), 'Licorice Pizza' (2021), it feels like we've watched someone go 'right...now it's my time', pull in all of Warner Bros financial might, get a huge star at the helm, go all out and finally make something 'big'. In this sense, the film succeeds. It just forgot to add that most vital of things we need to connect to the story in the first place - human beings. 

★★☆☆☆

JB.