One Battle After Another (2025)
I feel like Paul Thomas Anderson has fallen in to the same situation as Wes Anderson. With Wes I go into every movie wanting it to be as good as "The Royal Tenenbaums" or even "The Life Aquatic". Lately the movies have all the visual appeal but they are missing that something special.
That's really exactly how I feel about One Battle After Another; I was really hoping this would be as great as "There Will Be Blood". It's based on or it basically ripped off a Pynchon book. Ultimately, it's good but not truly great.
The movie is set in alternate timeline, it starts somewhere around what would be 2008ish. The US government is seemingly the Confederacy had they not only won the Civil War, but also conquered the north. Dicaprio and company are basically revolutionaries verging on being terrorists. His girlfriend Perfidia Beverly Hills (Tayana Taylor) is a hardcore warrior type. She crosses paths with Colonel LockJaw (Sean Penn). Perfidia shames him and he becomes obsessed with her in every possible way.
Fast forward into the future. Dicaprio is raising the daughter he had with Perfidia in secret hiding from the authorities. Perfidia is elsewhere in hiding. Old Colonel Lockjaw gets invited to join the "Christmas Adventurers" sort of like Skull and Bones but for wealthy and influential white supremacists. But, he can't join before his past and character have been properly vetted. So Lockjaw has some cleaning up to do. And this is essentially the movie.
What the movie does well is hold you attention for 3 hours. There are some hilarious scenes with Dicaprio arguing on the phone. The dialogue is good, the portrayal of "The Christmas Adventurers" was pretty far out on the absurdity scale. While it's funny it's so absurd it's jarring. At times it was like it was trying to "O Brother Where Art Thou".
There is a car chase scene at the end that I think will be the iconic scene of this film. Sean Penn's performance was every bit as good as Daniel Day Lewis's when it comes to portraying someone irredeemably bad. Benicio Del Toro is great in support as a sort of kingpin in a sanctuary city.
Watch it on a snowy day without interruption.
