ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER
(director/writer: Paul Thomas Anderson; cinematographers: Paul Thomas Anderson, Michael Bauman; editor: Andy Jurgensen; music: Jonny Greenwood; cast: Chase Infiniti (Willa), Leanardo DiCaprio (Bob Ferguson), Sean Penn (Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw), Teyana Taylor (Perfidia), Benicio del Toro (Sensei Sergio St. Carlos), Regina Hall (Deandra), Tony Goldwyn (Virgil Throckmorton), James Downey (Sandy Irvine), Wood Harris (Laredo), Shayna McHayle (Junglepussy), Alana Haim (Mae West), Starlette DuPois (Gramma Minnie), D.W. Moffett (Bill Desmond), Paul Grimstad (Howard Sommerville), James Raterman (Danvers), Kevin Tighe (Roy Moore), Vanessa Ganter (Sandrae, Perfidia’s mother), John Hoogenakker (Tim); Runtime: 161; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Paul Thomas Anderson, Sara Murphy, Adam Somner; Warner Bros. Pictures; 2025)
“It’s a polemic and timely political action film.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The 55-year-old Paul Thomas Anderson (“Licorice Pizza”/ “There Will Be Blood”) is the visionary writer/director of this dark comedy, one of his more feisty films, that offers a sincere response to the rise of the Christian nationalists and of the racist government trying to ignore America’s history of slavery to make this a country for only privileged white people. It’s a polemic and timely political action film on the counter-culture movement that’s inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 Vineland. The novel was about a former revolutionary hippie from California and his teenage daughter who are on the run from the Reagan government in the 1980s.
Anderson is married to the mixed-race SNL actress Maya Rudolph, and they have 4 children.
One Battle After Another is set mainly in unnamed places in California. It loosely re-imagines Pynchon’s story, as it reflects on present day America and the ICE raids on immigrants, the rise of the white supremacists, the country’s racist government and Trump’s alarming appeal for fascism and the damage his freaky anti-American presidency is doing to the country (without ever mentioning Trump or MAGA, as the film wrapped before Trump took office for his second term).
A clip from the relevant revolutionary film “The Battle of Algiers” (1966) shows how an underground radical army if disciplined can bring down a powerful repressive regime.
This captivating film has some juice as it points out how divided the country is over political, social & racial issues.
It begins some 16 years before modern times. Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) is a hardcore radical Black woman, a member of the Black Liberation Movement, who meets in the desert, at a remote spot by the US/Mexican border, with 20 members of her left-wing anarchist group, called the French 75. Her comrades include Deandra (Regina Hall) and the brainy Howard (Paul Grimstad). For their revolutionary cause, the violent group blow up buildings and rob banks and free jailed immigrants. They plan on this project to raid the Otay Mesa U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center and free the immigrant prisoners.
Perfidia has a fucked-up stoner white boyfriend nicknamed Ghetto Pat, who will later go underground and use the name Bob Ferguson (Leanardo DiCaprio). He’s an explosives guy who supplies her group with a wagon full of weapons.
At the raid site, before attacking, the revolutionists raise their right fist in the air and give their hearty cheer: “Free borders, free choices, free bodies, and freedom from fucking fear.”
Under Perfida’s leadership their mission is accomplished, and they get to humiliate the right-wing extremist Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), their nemesis, who is in charge at the detention center, stealing his gun and hat, as Perfida puts a gun to his head.
After the raid, Bob and Perfida resume being a couple, with him more intent on the relationship than she is.
Lockjaw is an ambitious Christian nationalist, maneuvering to get into the secretive Christmas Adventurers Club, a right-wing Christian group who have sway in the government and all its members have become filthy rich through questionable schemes. He’s a racist hypocrite, who has the hots for Perfida and has been following her because he’s dying to fuck and capture her in retaliation for the raid. He finds her at a restaurant and fucks her in the bathroom, satisfying his lust for Black women. Afterwards, she disappears in Mexico, even as Lockjaw puts her into the government Witness Protection Program.
Some 16 years later a downtrodden Bob is seen as a disheveled, not functioning, paranoid, middle-aged man hiding in the mountains as a single parent with his self-reliant 16-year-old daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti). She may not even be his, and can’t stand him because he’s an old fool who doesn’t care about her needs and is no longer involved in the revolution. Fortunately, she can survive on her own after trained in the martial arts by a laidback small business owner (Benicio del Toro), in town, who acts on his own to free the imprisoned immigrants.
Meanwhile the sicko Lockjaw is relentlessly rounding up those who have gone underground from the French 75, and is closing in on Bob.
The movie might be viewed by some as a rallying cry for a better future for the country, one without such hatred and divisiveness. Its target audience are liberals and free-thinkers who are questioning the current horror story that has swept across the American landscape because of the spineless politicians unwilling to stop a would-be despot leader from breaking the law it took an oath to protect.
It’s faultlessly acted and crafted, and intelligently thought out. It may be upsetting for some to see how close America is to losing its democracy, but that is the reality.
Besides its powerful story about an underground movement existing to fight the fascists and preserve our humanity, it features Jonny Greenwood’s catchy unique modern-day musical score, mind-blowing photography from Michael Bauman and, among many exciting set pieces, an outstanding roller-coaster car chase on a hill. It’s a political thriller for contemporary times that tries to reassure us that even if the establishment seems to be losing the fight to hold onto our democracy, there’s an underground of anonymous revolutionists who are willing to fight for freedom no matter its cost or how great is the challenge.
REVIEWED ON 9/25/2025 GRADE: A-
dennisschwartzreviews.com