You don’t have to agree with a film’s political or social point of view to praise it.
Movies open us up to new ideas, challenging preconceived notions in the process. Great art has a way of doing just that.
“One Battle After Another” isn’t great art. It’s an impeccably crafted polemic with a soul that’s as rotten as today’s far-Left ghouls. The film, loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Vineland,” casts an Antifa-style group as its heroes, demonizing law enforcement at every conceivable turn.
Its biggest flaw? Too many plot gimmicks that wouldn’t pass muster in an ’80s slasher film. It’s stunning that writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson didn’t see them at any point in the creative process.
Did ideology dull his artistic senses? If so, they didn’t ding his sense of cinematic excitement.
“One Battle After Another” MOVES. The film’s running time might seem bloated, but there’s never a lull in the story. What a shame that Anderson inserted so many forehead-smacking scenes en route.
The film opens along the U.S.-Mexico border. A violent group known as the French 75 overruns an immigrant detention center, holds guards at gunpoint and sets off explosions to distract anyone who might stop their assault.
And they’re ostensibly the good guys.
The villains are everywhere in the form of U.S. government officials, immigration officers and a leering ghoul named Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn).
Yes, that’s actually his name.
Col. Lockjaw may be Penn’s most indelible screen performance, and that’s saying plenty. More on him in a moment.
An activist named Perfidia (Teyana Taylor, en fuego) is the French 75’s emotional leader, and she drags her inept beau Bob (DiCaprio) into the fray. He’s not a quick study, but he adores Perfidia and will do as told.
One absurd plot gimmick later, and Perfidia gives birth to a bouncing baby girl, but this sudden family can’t shake the long arm of the law.
Flash forward 16 or so years, and Bob is a single father to young Willa (Chase Infiniti). Perfidia is out of the picture, and Bob spends his days doting on their daughter and smoking copious amounts of weed. When Col. Lockjaw re-enters the picture, with Willa in his sights, Bob must become the father he never expected he could be.
That plot summary omits the heavy sermonizing built into this “Battle.” French 75 targets ICE-like centers and agents, and their methods never come under scrutiny.
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MILD SPOILER
There’s no “come to Jesus” moment to be found with the revolutionary characters. They blow up buildings, shoot innocents and praise violence at every turn.
They’re the heroes of the film. And, to this critic, it’s sickening, especially given recent headlines.
END OF SPOILER
The government officials depicted here, from Col. Lockjaw to lesser figures, are either racist, murderous, liars or all three.
Often all three.
A farcical subplot finds Col. Lockjaw vying to join a White Supremacy group. It’s like a Joy Reid fever dream, but less coherent. Penn’s character is monotonously one-dimensional. The best movie villains offer a few shades of gray, moments where their humanity peeks through the rage.
Nothing doing here.
What is Anderson trying to say? Better yet, why is he trying to say it?
DiCaprio delivers another impeccable performance. Bob is unlike any character we’ve seen before. He’s hot-headed and mild-mannered, an accidental hippie who delivers the film’s best comic beats.
He’s trying so hard to reconnect with his radical days of yore, but his pot-addled brain won’t cooperate. Anderson overplays the running gag, but for a while it’s blissful comic relief.
“One Battle After Another” may be visceral in every sense of the word, but it can be shockingly dumb. Plot coincidences pile up in the third act, which otherwise offers some enthralling car chases.
How a master craftsman like Anderson could succumb to such silliness is a mystery. Then again, he may have been tripped up by his own messaging. It wouldn’t be the first time.
That’s a shame, because there’s a brilliant movie lurking within “One Battle After Another,” which also squanders Benicio del Toro by giving him a silly, anti-hero role. You can see it peering out of the shadows, combining the story’s bravura filmmaking with the kind of nuance that marks great filmmaking.
Anderson is too busy scrawling a furious message on screen to find it.
HiT or Miss: “One Battle After Another” is equal parts mesmerizing and moronic, an exhilarating experience that will make viewers scratch their heads in more ways than one.
I watched it and it was entertaining albeit preachy. The White male is evil trope is a big eye roll. Oh yeah let’s remember that Perfidia the “hero” is a murderer.
Kam oughta know that the militant Right is sharpening up their guillotines to use on your sort — even if reserved for career Federal drones who are as radical Left as any “elite” college faculty, but more ensconced in their sinecures. We’re gonna wildly celebrate spilling your poli-kin blood!
There’s no indication here that this recycled Weathermen wet-dream (Reviewed above) film correctly identifies the ultra-wealthy as the money-bags of far Left radicalism, from George Soros and Tom Stayer and Bill Gates on down. In fact, in 2020, 95% of the billionaire class supported the Democrat, Hillary Clinton.
Far Left radicalism is always and everywhere a Ruling Class top down endeavour. Like in Russia, the Bolsheviks were led by a lawyer named Lenin. In Cuba, Castro was a lawyer, while blood thirsty mass murderer Che Guevara trained as a physician. It remains true in the US today.
Even the Leninist-Stalinist CPUSA, after nearly a century of running their own candidates, has thrown its Presidential endorsements this century completely behind the former Slave Owning and KKKlan building party, the Democrats. That’s togetherness — five times in a row!
The “Democrats” are anything but that — they are CommieKKKrats and they owned by the far Left crazies. They are the traitorous Hate America First enemy within.
Well, Patriots and normies that make up 80% of the USA. Pass the ammunition and support your local vigilantes. The fascist Left shall be defeated as we take our great country back! One way…or the other.
Amen brother.
More leftoid garbage. They are the system. They are the rich. None of them are renegades. They are fighting for rich jews to get cheap labor via immigration while castrating all of our children with their insane LGBT warfare. Antifa are their useful idiots LOL.
wow… these comments spiraled out of control!
I appreciate HiT for both a right leaning but also a classic liberal take. As a reviewer he gets to watch everything and share with us his reactions. We don’t always agree but I appreciate the honesty and willingness to look at both the veneer and the content.
Hollywood has gotten better and better at making slick, engaging, well polished entertainment – with a rotten core – similar to the phrase – whitewashed tombs.
Occasionally the beautiful cover can be enjoyed even with a rotten core. This sounds like a clear case of the rot bubbling to the surface.
I have similar issues with Disney’s “recent” run of making former villains into misunderstood victims. At some point the redeeming traits fall away and just the evil garbage is left.
Is there anyone who cares bout “Tony” who can do a wellness check on him? I’m really worried. He seems very mentally ill.
Wrong, you’re the one who’s mentally ill, you freak. You need wellness check, because everything you said is full of excuses. Stop acting like you’re calm. Everyone can see that YOU’RE the real psychopath, and using me as a deflection for your toxic behavior. You are an evil heartless goblin.
“The best movie villains offer a few shades of gray, moments where their humanity peeks through the rage.”
That’s really not true. The Joker. Michael Myers. Hannibal Lector. Hans Landa. Jason Vorhees. Ghostface, Hans Gruber. Etc. Tons of iconic movie villains don’t offer any shades of gray whatsoever.
Either do you, Goblin.
Tony, are you feeling okay? You keep attacking me without disputing anything I’m saying. If this was a formal debate, you would get a zero score. It is a FACT that most iconic movie villains don’t have shades of gray. Palpatine is another great example. Speaking of Palpatine, George Lucas said he based the empire on rightwing politicians.
It’s because you keep lying, you heartless goblin. You’re NOT debatable, you’re calling people names, and using rhetoric, that’s causing the violence to begin with. You would commit murder, the moment Democrats, or the Hollywood elites start calling people they don’t agree with, “Nazis”.
“Its biggest flaw? Too many plot gimmicks that wouldn’t pass muster in an ’80s slasher film. It’s stunning that writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson didn’t see them at any point in the creative process.”
Tell me you’ve never seen a Paul Thomas Anderson film without telling me you’ve never seen a Paul Thomas Anderson film.
Christian has. This one was more of a Radical Leftist movie.
Haha lone Nazi reviewer stands out among the 98% Fresh reviews. What an imbecilic take on what the movie has to say.
Have you seen the movie? Do you think calling a film critic a Nazi is a rational approach?
These people aren’t interested in having conversations.
Amen brother. It shows the warped sickness of the left
You’re wasting your time. Hopefully people will realize this is a fictional movie.
What a clown response.
Leftist Hollywood is such a joke. Thank God for the brave willing to tell the truth. The left is a death cult willing to cancel and kill anyone that speaks up. Poor Charlie Kirk got in their way. I won’t be a bit surprised to see Hollywood make a movie glorifying his murderer. Sick people.
Kennan, no one in Hollywood caused Charlie to die. Every other first world country has far more leftism than America does(as proven by their politics). And yet they don’t have the gun violence from the left that America does. Has it occurred to you that if you’re nervous about the left having guns, the solution is to not make guns so easily accessible? And 99.9 % of Hollywood is leftists. So stop talking about them and only talk about rightwing movies then. What’s stopping the right from making their own version of Hollywood? Oh wait, Shapiro and others tried, and it didn’t work out because they can’t get any of the best screenwriters or directors or actors.
Stop defending Hollywood, Kam, you fascist sympathizer.
Tony, I don’t have to defend Hollywood. They don’t need my help. They are a multi-billionaire dollar industry that contributes tons to our country’s GDP. They are America’s most iconic export. If Hollywood was full of Trump fans, you would be praising them as gods. If the right don’t care about Hollywood, why does the right get so excited when some Z-lister like Zachary Levi or Scot Baio turns out to be MAGA?
You are defending Hollywood, Kam. Stop deflecting. And no, Hollywood isn’t allowing Trump fans in. You’re just making excuses, to defend a corrupt system. Every you said, is nothing but word salad. You are an evil bigot. Zachary Levi and Scott Baio did nothing wrong, other then just have a double opinion from the Hollywood machine, and an evil goblin like you.
‘different’
Charlie Hebdo was murdered in France for drawing Muhammad. There have been other murders in Europe too over politics and also mass violence and killing events. Evil is a problem everywhere.
Kam, it may be that no one in Hollywood contacted Tyler Robinson and told him to murder Charlie Kirk in front of a group of college students who had gathered to practice debating, but calling Charlie a fascist gave the shooter an excuse.
Hollywood actors have significantly more influence in society than someone like me. We see many of them frequently claim ALL Republicans are fascists or misogynists and refuse to call out Democrats. Like Mark Hammil. He’s an actor I really admire for having stayed married to his wife for a very long time and also for continuing to work in Hollywood after injuring his face, but he has become obsessed with Trump and exaggerates.
Apparently they had already made a show about it staring Jessica Chastain for AppleTV but it was pushed out due to his recent passing.
if you ever actually met a real ‘natzee’ you’d last about 3 seconds….the movie will make a paltry 20 mil in it’s opening weekend which means it will be a bomb at the box office no matter how many sniveling snowflakes like you gush over it
Hollywood is more than willing to lose millions … assuming it can spread this film’s message to the masses.
Actually, it’s doing really well for the sort of movie it is. PTA’s movies are never huge box office smash hits. Sniveling snowflakes? So many on the right called for a boycott of the Barbie movie, yet it still made 1.4 billion. You can’t accuse the other side of being snowflakes when your side calls for boycotts of everything from Disney to Meryl Streep. Now tons of rightwing influencers on X are calling for a boycott of South park.
You’re the real snowflake, Kam. You are an evil bigot, Kam.
The movie made almost 50 million opening weekend. The best opening weekend for a PTA movie ever.
Tony, I’m a person of color. I’m the furthest thing from a bigot or a snowflake. Unlike you, I’ve actually been called the N word in real life. You don’t know how it feels when white supremacists think they’re better than you just because of skin color. I think all ethnicities are created equal. I’m sorry if I triggered you just by presenting you with facts. Very telling you didn’t dispute anything I said. Go call the people who are demanding a boycott of South Park “snowflakes.”
Stop playing the victim, Kam. YOU are the real aggressor. You are acting like a movie villain. There are no “White Supremacists”, you heartless goblin! You would commit murder, the moment someone doesn’t agree with you.
You have no facts, Kam. You’re spreading lies, propaganda and rhetoric. Identity politics is based on lies.
This level of name calling is why violence crimes is out of control. You’re not hiding that you’re a heartless and soulless goblin.
Stop name calling Tony
Stop name calling Tony
What it has to say LOL
LOOK AT THIS SYSTEM BOOTLICKER ALL CUCKED UP FOR THE IMMIGRANTS
Loser
Production wrapped before Trump was elected, but this guy’s messaging in his movies seems to characterize capitalism and law enforcement in a bad light.
I guess he works for free.
Sean Penn and Leo DiCaprio. Tells you everything you need to know right there.
All the rightwing manosphere bros talk about Dicaprio like he’s a god because he’s always dating hot young supermodels.
With white Supermodels… only with white Supermodels.
Stop lying, you evil goblin. You are the embodiment of evil, Kam.
Tony, once again you sound mentally ill. What lies am I telling? How is it a lie that Dicaprio dates all the best looking supermodels? He endorsed Harris. When someone makes a statement and you accuse that person of being a liar without providing evidence it’s a lie, you come across as a child.
Wrong, you’re the mentally ill freak, Kam. Every you said is a full blown lie. You never made statements, you keep telling lies, based on identity politics. You keep calling people, “Nazis”, “White supremacists”, “fascists” etc. You bringing up who DiCaprio is dating, is you, making excuses, to defend his corrupt behavior. And Kamala Harris would be disastrous for America. NOT because she’s black or a woman, but because she’s just useless and has no clear direction.
Thanks for having the truth and courage to talk about its warped message. It shows how far-left critics are that they gave it 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and the review summaries for the critics say nothing about the politics of it. Your article yesterday and today spared me and hopefully lots of others from supporting this twisted garbage. I checked the advance sales at my local Regal theatres premium screen this weekend and barely a ticket is sold. I think Normal America can tell that something was really off with the trailer.
Just watched the first 20 minutes, my wife and I couldn’t stand any more, guess we should have made a closer look at the reviews, definitely a bad movie, found it basically disgusting, walked out, got our money back; if you are a person with good morals you won’t like this, glorifying anti-government anti-law and order, glorifying the death of innocents, making out that government officials are not people just targets, I know there is more to the story but I am convinced that this is a battle cry for the woke left, and worry that this will be imitated in real life by the not so intelligent who now espouse that the old good is now bad & old bad is now good; 5 stars of Vomit for this movie.
I walked out too! after the recent Ice Shooting it sickened me to see them attacking the ICE facility. This movie is unabashedly promoting and glorifying violence against anyone that does not follow the leftist ideology. I couldn’t keep watching…
That’s like saying the Scream movies glorify violence. It’s fiction. It’s not the fault of a filmmaker if a mentally ill person doesn’t understand the difference between reality and fiction? Would you blame the Aurora theater shooting on Christopher Nolan?
Amazing how many people on the right claim to have walked out of this movie. You guys have spent the last 10 years insisting you refuse to watch anything made by “woke liberal Hollyweird.” So why were you at the movies anyway? Get your stories straight. Have you been boycotting Hollywood or not?
Stop defending Far Left movies, Kam. You are an evil Woke fanatic.
I thought Conservatives in the US hated ‘snowflake’ culture and people getting offended at the slightest thing and needing safe spaces when they couldnt handle reality…isnt that what they’ve been banging on about for the past 15 years or so…and now you guys cant even handle a piece of FICTION and get so offended you walk out after 20 mins to your safe space? Did you walk out of the Matrix when Neo was fighting police, or V For Vendetta which portrays a rebellion against a fascist gvmt? IT’S FICTION
Besides, the main thing this movie mocks & portrays as bad are Whute Supremacists and Stasi-esque gvmts rounding up brown people in camps…I wonder why you’d be against that? If the day comes when ‘the left’ storm the Capitol building and kill policemen,trying to overturn the results of a democratic election at the behest of their political cult-leader, while citing this movie as inspiration, I think you can rest easy.
No policemen were killed during Jan. 6 riots.
Carl, PTA’s movies are always artsy and are almost never box office smash hits. Plenty of leftwing movies have done well. Have you forgotten the Barbie movie making 1.4 billion despite being boycotted by many conservative groups?
Stop lying, you evil bigot. You support political violence, admit it, you evil goblin.
Tony, what lie did I tell? It is a FACT that Barbie made 1.4 billion. How is that a lie? It’s a fact. You sound crazy. Of course I don’t support political violence. How did Barbie promote far left violence? It is a feminist film. It got boycotted by many on the right(including Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh and Matt and Ginger Gaetz), and yet still made 1.4 billion. Same thing happened with the Minecraft movie. The right said it would be a woke flop. Yet it was a hit. Same thing with Scream 5 and 6. Same with Evil Dead Rise. Facts don’t care about your feelings. Box office numbers are a fact. And plenty of non-woke movies like Morbius, Kraven, Shazam 2, The Fall guy, and Nobody 2 flopped. Audiences don’t care if something is woke or not. They watch what looks entertaining.
You have no facts, you keep spreading lies and propaganda, Kam. Left wing movies, have not done well, you lying propagandist. You keep using feelings over facts, because because you want to make excuses, for Hollywood. And Barbie was always meant to be for woman, you goblin. It was not marketed for men. But you don’t care about that, you just want to look for a cheap shot. You want Woke propaganda, you heartless goblin.
And yes, you do support political violence, Kam. Because you’re making excuses again.