Review: One Battle After Another

-


Official synopsis: When their evil enemy resurfaces after 16 years, a group of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue one of their own's daughter.

Despite Paul Thomas Anderson directing, and excellent talent like Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall and Benicio del Toro being involved, I wasn't quite sure what to think of the trailer of One Battle After Another. It looked....fine. When the second trailer came out, wildly different than the first, I wondered if this was going to have a tone problem. Thankfully, that was just another case of trailer editors' poor decisions, because One Battle After Another has a lot to say, and is far more timely then you'd think. 

It's great to see a major studio back a film that is very harshly critiquing those against immigration. Even more so, it lampoons the white supremacists at the very top of the ladder. I wonder if those who see this film will even recognize themselves. In between all of the harshness, it's sprinkled with some pretty damn funny dialogue. 

I'm kind of loving DiCaprio in his dumb character era. Bob is an absolute mess, but an entertaining one to watch here. Teyana Taylor has a tough role to play here. Her Perfidia has to make some very tough choices and vulnerably shares her thoughts on motherhood that seem to go against the grain. I think many will judge her, I just felt bad for her throughout. 

The real star is Chase Infiniti, who plays Bob and Perfidia's daughter Willa. This is her first film, and you would never tell. She's so confident in this role. She's also going to play the older Agnes in the upcoming The Testaments and I cannot wait to see her in that. On a side note, it's absolutely diabolical that they cast a 24 year old to play Leo's daughter. IYKYK.

I do think the film runs a bit long, so it's not quite a home run for me, but the longer I sat with One Battle After Another, the more it grew on me. 

Grade: B

Comments

  1. thevoid99October 2, 2025 at 2:32 PM

    This film is definitely one of PTA's best films and Leo fucking knocked it out of the park. I do love this film as there is so many things that I'm still laughing about. I wish it was longer as it did not feel like a 2-hour, 45-minute film. I was just enthralled by it. Plus, I will never get over Benicio del Toro's walk after being stopped by the cops.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

If you're reading this message you should leave a comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Random Ramblings: The Radio Flyer Conundrum

-
Image
Recently, I was talking to someone about who I thought were the best child actors when I was also a child.  Two that really stood out to me were Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazello, and one film those two were in together was called Radio Flyer.  Then I was reminded about the uniqueness of this film. Instead of reviewing the film, I wanted to have an open discussion about the ending. It deals with a tough issue; child abuse. What I’ve noticed is the way that the film ends is interpreted many different ways, and the filmmakers never came forward to say what was right and wrong. I’m interested in hearing everyone’s opinions on it. How did you interpret the ending? Obviously spoiler alerts will follow.. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, the basic premise is this: Two young boys, Mikey (Wood) and Bobby (Mazello) move in with their single mother and her boyfriend, who refers to himself as ‘The King’. It doesn’t take long for The King to start physically abusing ...
Read more

Please join me in my Favorite Movie Titles Blogathon!

-
Image
Earlier this week I made a post where I ran through the letters of the alphabet with my favorite movie titles. There were a few people that suggested I turn it into a blogathon, and I've never done that before. So here goes nothing! Since this is my first attempt at a blogathon, it's all pretty simple, and it's hopefully a quick post that everyone can join in. Rules: 1) Going through the alphabet, list your favorite movie title beginning with each letter.  2) You don't have to necessarily  like the movie to use it's title.  3) Use the banner at the top of this post in yours. 4) Please have submissions in by Friday, May 30th*. (But I'll be honest, if you send them to me after that date, I'll still add them to my post.) You can either leave a link to your post in the comments here or tweet it to me, ( @ramblingfilm )  Thanks everyone! :)  *I had to move the date back a week due to Photobucket threatening me with bandwidth issues. But...
Read more

Review: The Ugly Stepsister

-
Image
Official synopsis : Follows Elvira (Lea Myren) as she battles against her gorgeous stepsister, Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss)  in a realm where beauty reigns supreme. She resorts to extreme measures to captivate the prince ( Isac Calmroth)  , amidst a ruthless competition for physical perfection. It's no coincidence that some of the best body horror films are ones that are about the ridiculous beauty standards placed upon women. "Beauty is pain" after all. The two go hand in hand.  Here, first time director Emilie Blichfeldt takes a classic fairy tale that we all know and dials it up to eleven. Prepare to cringe. Poor Elvira goes to serious lengths to be deemed "beautiful." Nevermind that Elvira IS already beautiful, but she has *gasp* braces and a bump in her nose. ( allegedly) Her mother doesn't support her daughter and tell her she's fine the way she is, instead she encourages the painful procedures Elvira goes through. It's hard to watch on multipl...
Read more