‘One Battle After Another’ review: Leonardo DiCaprio leads a propulsive, hilarious, and political thriller

One battle after another is sure to be one of the most announced films of the year. On paper, it may seem obvious. This film is written and directed by the nominated at 11 times Paul Thomas Anderson, creator of Boogie Nights, Magnolia, there will be blood, an inherent vice, a ghost wire,, And Licorice pizza. True to the form of Anderson, he has a convincing overall distribution which includes big names like Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn and Teyana Taylor, as well as the new incendiary talent Chase Infiniti. And at a certain level, it is inspired by a dense novel, Thomas Pynchon Vineland. But do not let the wild praise make you think that you know what to expect.

Ferocious, funny and full of provocation, One battle after another is such an explosive film in his ideas and the execution that I doubt that a review can encapsulate everything that it takes place. So let me use my criticism to underline this: whatever you planned from Anderson’s last, this film is more.

Believe the threshing media: One battle after another is a banger.

One battle after another is a blister’s overall effort.

Teyana Taylor and Leonardo DiCaprio in “One Battle after the other”.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

One battle after anotherThe posters and the first trailer could make you think that this film is focused on the character of DiCaprio. However, the thriller begins with a blow in the form of Perfidia Beverly Hills (Taylor), a radiant and robust revolutionary with a rebellious team on 75 French.

The first act followed closely immersed, while she and her team storm an immigrant detention center to release his prisoners. From there, she gets involved with two very different men, in mood and politics. The first is Pat “Ghetto Pat” Calhoun (Dicaprio), a bombs manufacturer whose enthusiasm for the cause is as explosive as his work. The other is Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Penn), a soldier who is rejected by the principles of Perfedia but excited by everything else.

This knotty triangle of love, sex and transgression plants a seed which leads to pregnant perfectia, which gives a girl named Willa, who will never know her mother. A pivotal act launches Pat and the baby to hide, with the help of his revolutionary champagne compatriot (a burning room).

Act 2 resumed 14 years later, when Lockjaw is freshly motivated to recover the disappeared father’s duo. Thus, most of the film becomes a fight for Willa (Infiniti). Lockjaw continues the adolescent for his own harmful means; Pat (who lives under the alias Bob) is desperate to save her from the demon who took her mother. But Willa is not a young lady in distress. A black American woman, educated to understand – at least in part – the mission of her parents, she is a warrior born and raised. In this, she becomes more a protagonist than her father, Pat.

Teyana Taylor is in the role she was born to play; Chase Infiniti is a star.

Teyana Taylor as Perfidia Beverly Hills in “One Battle after another”.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

One battle after another Take a big risk by removing Taylor from the film at the end of the first act. This actress / singer / composer / choreographer is so dynamic on the screen that she commands not only these white men who love violence, but also the attention of the public. Branding an automatic weapon and a large, round pregnant belly, it is an intrepid force with which you have to count. And once the plot moves away from perfectia, we feel a hint of loss of his family. We share pain so that it comes back and that it is complicated, powerful and glorious in its anger and its principle.

Essentially, the character of Taylor throws a shadow on the second act of the film. However, in the intense arc of Willa in adulthood, Infiniti goes beyond this shadow. At a glance, Willa begins like a fairly average American girl, dressed in a bouncing taffeta skirt, a white T-shirt, boots and a leather jacket. She is elegant but not out of competition, and she ensures a familiar frustration of the Z generation with the “polished” confusion of her father on these pronouns. But above all, she is annoyed that he is devoted to living as a reclusive Pothead, forcing him to be an adult before her time.

Chase Infiniti and Regina Hall stood in “one battle after another”.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

This father-daughter conflict flowers while military forces invade school dance. In the blink of an eye, Willa must make the jump of the average teenager to the rebel on the race, because the government forces of assault have no mercy for this child. The own infiniti eyes powerfully show the shock of this forced transition in close -up. While she bounced from a van to a safe house – where the heritage of her mother is muddy – Willa has trouble grasping all the ways in which her world is upset, not because of any choice she made, but because of the war and the identities in which she was born. And while the film decreases in its highest point, Infiniti evolves this pathos in action with a breathtaking execution.

One battle after another is a roller coaster of a thriller.

Benico Del Toro is developing strategies in “One Battle” by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

I do not make fun of you, although this film lasts almost three hours, I would have thought you if you told me that it was 90 minutes. While Anderson is known for a known of meat, he rarely designed such a propulsive plot whose film takes place. It is all the more impressive the spread of characters, arcs, drama, comedy and politics that enter the mixture.

Without entering the spoilers, the execution of Anderson of the combat scenes offers a mixture of slapstick and heartbreaking tear. Reflecting the functioning of violence in a large part of the American media, it is used here as both comic entertainment and dramatic impact in intestine. However, the most exciting sequence is a car prosecution in the peak which puts us in the seats of the two and the prosecution. The result is really that of a roller coaster, which makes the stomach of this criticism. But unlike an attraction of the theme park, there is no promise at the end of this conduct. So, as our vision is taken by another hill to come, without any idea of ​​what comes with the fall to follow, an increasing fear settles, which Anderson pays masterfully.

While Anderson is known for a known of meat, he rarely designed such a propulsive plot whose film takes place.

Beyond the action, Willa and the other black revolutionary women in the film in the film A battle after another ‘S Drama. Born the privileges of white men who are their allies or enemies, their issues in this rivalry are more striking. It is beyond pride. Their bodies, considered political, are the first line of their war. On the other hand, white men who are rival here are described as clowns.

Sean Penn is funny and terrifying; Leonardo DiCaprio is a great clown One battle after another.

Sean Penn and Teyana Taylor compete in “One Battle after the other”.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

Colonel Lockjaw is a ruthless man of ambition. More specifically, he aspires to be in the secret society of white nationalists called Christmas adventurers. Vaguely inspired by Vineland, a battle after another more closely to the tradition of the media as Superman’s adventures“The Ardent Cross clan” and the Coen Bros’ O brother, where are you? In terms of mockery of dangerous white power groups and denies like KKK. Surrounded by preppy white men, rich and powerful, Lockjaw has conversations which are equally repellent and hilarious for their pure scandal, such as the serious use of the “sperm” phrase.

In this kingdom, Lockjaw is a hard -cutting hard, and Penn continues this vision by swelling like a figure of action and by carrying in a strong physics which suggests not so much discipline as paralyzing repression. Forced in a box of its own manufacture, Lockjaw is vicious, avenger and violent, but also a laughable fool, and the remains of the 75 French will make it known.

DiCaprio like Pat (or Bob) is Lockjaw paper although it is also a buffoon. As teased in the film’s trailers, years of hiding place have been devoted to stoning. Thus, when it is called upon to recall the access codes of 14 years ago, it is absolutely short. By rushing to get help, Pat rushes towards the instructor of martial arts of Willa, Sergio St. Carlos, (a Benicio del Toro sublime but calmly funny). Together, they make a dazzling comedy duo of GOOFUS and the gallant variety.

Leonardo DiCaprio is a great clown in “One Battle after the other”.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

Fans of Wall Street Wolf Will Giddily will remember the physical comedy of Dicaprio of the Quaaludes sequence while he escapes and jostles trying to go to the point of extraction to find his daughter. However, these scenes are not only a comic relief which masterfully balances the tension on the chest of the Willa escape wire. Given Anderson’s own life, there is a self-reflective vulnerability here.

With his partner Maya Rudolph, he has four children, making him a white father for black girls. So it is easy to imagine that at Pat, as with Daniel Day-Lewis to Reynolds Woodcock in GhostThere is a point of personal inspiration, where the filmmaker is struggling with the balance between self and family. Where in Ghost It is a work and life at home, especially quality time with his wife, One battle after another Explore the fear of being too self-involved or out of touch to be the father a black girl needs in a space where her very existence is considered political by people in power.

All this to say, One battle after another holds the promise of the trailers to be a very funny feeling walk, rich in star. But faithful to the signature of Anderson, he also investigated the political and personal, raw and ruthless depths. Next to Sinners,, He will undoubtedly be declared one of the best films of the year, not only for what he brings to the cinema in terms of spectacle and spirit, but also what he has to say about America today.

One battle after another Will be in the rooms on Vistivision, 70 mm and IMAX on a national scale on September 26, 2025.