Wednesday, 1 October 2025 »  Login
in
»
Movies » One Battle After Another Movie Review
I am at

One Battle After Another Review

One Battle After Another
Sai Tulasi Neppali / fullhyd.com
EDITOR RATING
8.5
Performances
Script
Music/Soundtrack
Visuals
8.5
8.0
8.0
8.0
Suggestions
Can watch again
Yes
Good for kids
No
Good for dates
Yes
Wait for OTT
No

If you happen to know a longtime fan of filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson (you can spot them by the way they drop "PTA" into casual conversations and sometimes believe, somewhat snobbishly, that their very recognition of this auteur earns them cinephile credibility), you'll find them abuzz around the release of his new film. A PTA release is always an event. Few filmmakers consistently deliver something wholly original while remaining unmistakably in step with their uncompromising style. From the cult favorite Magnolia to the buzzy coming-of-age Licorice Pizza, Anderson's films are funny, emotional, surprising, and unflinchingly open-minded, capturing the cracked-up, illogical and unpredictable variety of the human condition. One Battle After Another may be his most contemporary, politically savvy, darkly humorous, anti-capitalist work yet. And yes, it has a fabulous on-the-road scene (a PTA specialty).

The film bursts open with a rash of vivid, full-bodied characters who waste no time entangling themselves in combustible relationships. A vigilante group, French 75, is plotting a series of reckless operations to liberate immigrants from detention centres.

On the frontlines of French 75 are Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), a loud-mouthed Black woman with charisma and unshakable faith in the cause, and Pat (Leonardo DiCaprio), a less-committed bomb engineer whose adrenaline-fueled fling with Perfidia leaves her pregnant with a daughter.

In a stroke of pure PTAness, Perfidia is also lusted after by Colonel Steve Lockjaw (Sean Penn), after she unlocks, let's say, a carnal backdoor in his psyche, when she forces him to have an erection while her vigilante colleagues attack the detention centre under his command and free its inmates.

True to Anderson's genre-juggling style, the incendiary social parody transforms into a chase-sequence-filled rescue mission. The story leaps forward 16 years: Pat, who now goes by "Bob" and has turned into a heroin-addled paranoid father, is trying to protect his remarkably composed teenage daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) from his old nemesis.

The screenplay spins plates - exhilarating to watch as it teeters on the edge of collapse yet somehow holds together. One stretch, in particular, is brilliantly put together. Lockjaw descends on Bob and Willa's hometown under the pretext of nabbing undocumented immigrants. The town centre is burning, protestors are rioting, and Bob, stumbling through the fog of a heroin high, desperately latches onto the immigrant leader "Sensei" Carlos (Benecio Del Toro) who moonlights as a Taekwondo master. While Bob is running around like a headless chicken searching for a socket to charge his phone so he can track down his Willa, the Sensei is simultaneously saving a mini-village of immigrants with a cool head, a contrast that is masterfully choreographed.

For all its political charge, the story resists taking sides, lampooning the zealotry of both the far-left vigilantes and the equally delusional far-right racial purity cult, the "Christmas Adventurers Club", which Lockjaw aspires to join. That PTA chooses such an innocuous name for a Hitler-level-of-evil organization is just one example of his humour through nomenclature. "Lockjaw", for the sexually frustrated Colonel, for instance. Or the decidedly attention-seeking name "Perfidia Beverly Hills". Elsewhere, Lockjaw raids "Chickin' Lickin' Frozen Food Farm" and then heads straight to a convent of weed-growing nuns called "Sisters of Brave Beavers", in search for Willa.

When it comes to performances, there are no slackers. Teyana Taylor as the bombshell-rebel Perfidia sizzles and takes over the first half, while Chase Infiniti's no-nonsense Willa discovers an untapped reservoir of power in real time as she is shuffled from one damaged adult to another.

DiCaprio's Pat/Bob recalls shades of his geek-loser turn in Don't Look Up, but he is given far more room here. He is hilarious, dead-serious, desperate and hopeless, sometimes all within the same line-delivery.

And then there is Sean Penn, unforgettable and gag-inducing as the ruddy-faced Lockjaw. Poured into rippling-tight T-shirts, his inveterately perverted character looks perpetually on the verge of bursting at the seams.

In one of the film's early scenes, Perfidia and Bob, at the height of their lust, decide to have sex as the bomb they've just planted goes off in the distance. That moment is the perfect metaphor for the film itself - an improbable, heady mix of themes and lines that always feels on the verge of falling apart, yet somehow fuses into something intensely, almost orgasmically, satisfying, each element driving the other higher. With tightrope-walking performances and a Jonny Greenwood soundtrack that propels everything forward with faultless rhythm, One Battle After Another lands as an instant classic.
Share. Save. Connect.
  EMAIL
  PRINT
  SAVE
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER SNAPSHOT
One Battle After Another (english) reviews
USER RATING
0.0
0 USERS
RATE
Rating is quick and easy - try it!
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER USER REVIEWS
Be the first to comment on One Battle After Another! Just use the simple form below.
LEAVE A COMMENT
fullhyd.com has 700,000+ monthly visits. Tell Hyderabad what you feel about One Battle After Another!
Rate Movie
[no link to your name will appear, overriding global settings]
To preserve integrity, fullhyd.com allows ratings/comments only with a valid email. Your comments will be accepted once you give your email, and will be deleted if the email is not authenticated within 24 hours.
My name:

Dissatisfied with the results? Report a problem or error, or add a listing.
ADVERTISEMENT
SHOUTBOX!
{{todo.name}}
{{todo.date}}
[
]
{{ todo.summary }}... expand »
{{ todo.text }} « collapse
First  |  Prev  |   1   2  3  {{current_page-1}}  {{current_page}}  {{current_page+1}}  {{last_page-2}}  {{last_page-1}}  {{last_page}}   |  Next  |  Last
{{todos[0].name}}

{{todos[0].text}}

ADVERTISEMENT
This page was tagged for
One Battle After Another english movie
One Battle After Another reviews
release date
Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn
theatres list
Follow fullhyd.com on
Copyright © 2023 LRR Technologies (Hyderabad) Pvt Ltd. All rights reserved. fullhyd and fullhyderabad are registered trademarks of LRR Technologies (Hyderabad) Pvt Ltd. The textual, graphic, audio and audiovisual material in this site is protected by copyright law. You may not copy, distribute or use this material except as necessary for your personal, non-commercial use. Any trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.