ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER : Tuesday 30th September 2025

I saw the M Rated 'ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER' this week, and this American action thriller film is Written, Co-Produced, and Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and is loosely based on the 1990 novel 'Vineland' by Thomas Pynchon. Anderson made his feature film debut with 'Hard Eight' in 1996, which he would follow up with the likes of 'Boogie Nights' in 1997, 'Magnolia' in 1999, 'There Will Be Blood' in 2007, 'Inherent Vice' in 2014, 'Phantom Thread' in 2017 and 'Licorice Pizza' in 2021. His accolades include a BAFTA Award, and nominations for eleven Academy Awards, three Golden Globes, and a Grammy. He is also the only person to have won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival, the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and the Silver and Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. This film was released here in Australia and Stateside last week, has garnered universal critical acclaim and has so far grossed US$66M against a production budget of somewhere between US$130 and US$175M.

The film opens with Pat 'Ghetto' Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) who are both very active members of the far-left revolutionary group known as the French 75, busting out detained illegal immigrants from a detention centre in California undercover of darkness. Perfidia wakes the snoozing commanding officer, Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn) and humiliates him, while also stealing his cap and his sidearm. Lockjaw develops a sexual fascination with her. Pat and Perfidia become lovers as the French 75 carry out attacks on politicians' offices, banks, and the electricity supply grid. Sometime later Lockjaw catches Perfidia planting a bomb inside a toilet cubicle in a government building, but lets her go after she agrees to have sex at a motel. 

Nine months later and Perfidia gives birth to a baby girl, Charlene, but Pat is unable to convince her to live as a family, saying that he is more interested in baby Charlene that he is in her, and that his revolutionary leanings having given way to fatherhood. She walks out on them both them to continue her revolutionary activities. After Perfidia is captured at a botched bank robbery in which she shoots dead a security guard, Lockjaw arranges for her to avoid prison in exchange for information about the French 75. She enters witness protection as Lockjaw hunts down her comrades and shoots many of them on sight, forcing the others to go on the run. As Pat and Charlene are forced to live in hiding with new assumed identities as Bob and Willa Ferguson, Perfidia escapes Lockjaw's custody and flees across the border into Mexico.

We then fast forward sixteen years, and living in the sanctuary city of Baktan Cross, Bob has become a paranoid drug addict. He is overprotective of Willa (Chase Infiniti), who has grown into a self-reliant and spirited teenager. Through his vigorous anti-immigrant efforts, Lockjaw has gained promotion to the rank of Colonel, and is invited to join the Christmas Adventurers Club, a covert society of white supremacists. He hunts for Willa to cover up his interracial relationship, which is forbidden by the club. He hires an Indigenous bounty hunter, Avanti Q (Eric Schweig), who captures Bob's comrade Howard Sommerville (Paul Grimstad), triggering a distress signal to the remaining French 75. 

Under the auspices of an immigration and drug enforcement operation, Lockjaw dispatches his troops to Baktan Cross to find Bob and Willa. Deandra (Regina Hall), a trusted member of the French 75, rescues Willa before her school dance is raided. Lockjaw's men attack Bob's home while he is high, but he manages to evade capture by escaping through a tunnel and calls the French 75 for help, but is unable to remember the password to mobilise their assistance. 

He seeks out Willa's karate teacher and community leader Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio Del Toro) who evacuates a stream of immigrants through a hidden tunnel. Fleeing with Sergio's skateboarding students across the rooftops, Bob falls while jumping from building to building with only the branches of a tree breaking his fall, and is immediately tasered and arrested. Deandra brings Willa to a convent of revolutionary nuns, where she learns the truth about her mother's betrayal.

The Christmas Adventurers uncover evidence of Lockjaw's relationship with Perfidia, and send a member, Tim Smith (John Hoogenakker), to eliminate him and Willa. Raiding the convent, Lockjaw forcibly tests Willa's DNA, confirming he is her biological father. Her being his biological daughter makes his membership in the Christmas Adventurers Club impossible and he decides to eliminate her. Had she not been his daughter he might have let her go free. 

Sergio arranges for Bob to escape custody and drives him to the convent, throwing him from the car before being pulled over by Police. Hot-wiring another car, Bob reaches the convent but fails to kill Lockjaw with Sergio's rifle. The colonel hires Avanti to kill Willa but he refuses saying that he doesn't kill children and so he agrees to take her to a group of mercenaries, who will kill her. Smith tracks Lockjaw down and shoots him, causing him to crash his car over a ravine at speed, and leaves him for dead hanging upside down and bleeding heavily.

Avanti delivers Willa to the mercenaries, but frees her and dies gunning the others down. Willa takes Avanti's car and pistol and is chased by Smith until she lures him into a crash by exploiting a blind summit along the road. He stumbles out of his car and she shoots him dead when he does not know the revolutionary countersign, and tearfully reunites with Bob who arrives a minute or so later and observes the carnage. An injured and bloodied Lockjaw is seen walking at pace from the scene of his crash, and is later on badly scarred and is seemingly welcomed into the Christmas Adventurers Club. Having been welcomed to his new corner office overlooking the city he sits back in his chair with his feet upon his new desk, and is instead gassed to death and his body immediately cremated in an incinerator. Returning home with his daughter, Bob gives Willa a letter of hope from her mother, and his blessing as she sets off to join a protest some three hours away in Oakland, no longer stressful about his daughter's future. 

There a lot going on in 'One Battle After Another', from the nuances of a father and daughter relationship, to the political machinations that mirror what is going down in the US currently, to the covert operations of an out of control Police force, to the secret cabal of white supremacists, to immigration, revolutionaries, mercenaries for hire and just about everything in between it seems. Here PTA has delivered us the entire package of action, laughs, great characters, a flawless script, and outstanding performances most notably from DiCaprio, Penn, Taylor, Hall and first-timer Chase Infiniti. Make no mistake this would rank as one of the best movies of the year so far, easy Academy Award bait, and even at its lengthy 161 minute run time it will not leave you wanting.

'One Battle After Another' merits five claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-