One Battle After Another’s Appealing Radical Heart » PopMatters

Anderson’s status as one of the current masters of American cinema is unquestionable, so if Warner decides to cut a check and let him cook, what difference does it make to anyone other than those who will be held accountable if it doesn’t perform? The baldly commercial, easily forgotten films that rake in money allow Warner to bet big on talents like Paul Thomas Anderson and Ryan Coogler. While One Battle After Another will not make Sinners-level money, Warner is likely to have two films in the Best Picture race in 2025, not to mention the reputation boost the studio will likely gain among elite filmmakers for funding Coogler and Anderson’s passion projects.  

While other celebrated directors of his generation are content to stay in their lane (Wes Anderson has more or less made the same two films for the past 25 years), Paul Thomas Anderson has taken big swing after big swing, writing and directing films with a personal scale that tackle the stuff of life–the victors and casualties of American society, the search for romantic relationships, the lure of those who claim to have The Answer, and the need to create family when blood relations betray.

One Battle After Another also examines the deterioration of American values, aligning with Anderson’s other Pynchon adaptation, Inherent Vice. (2014). That film laments the end of the hippie era and the rise of Nixon’s America.

[Spoilers Ahead] Inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland (1990) in the same way that There Will Be Blood was inspired by Upton Sinclair’s Oil! (1926), the Pynchon novel is a jumping-off point for an examination of race, class, and family. One Battle After Another is hilarious, harrowing, and Anderson’s most purely entertaining film since 1997’s Boogie Nights. It presents a series of provocative ideas and images, which is no mean feat for a film released by a major studio with the requisite marketing budget for films of this size. 

For two hours and 40 minutes, One Battle After Another zips along, sustaining a feeling of tension, punctuated by several stellar setpieces and shot through with laugh-out-loud moments to ease the relentlessness of the story. The film incorporates elements from films like John Ford’s The Searchers (1956), Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild (1986), and Daniel André’s Running on Empty (2024) and weds them to multiple action sequences that are genuinely exciting. One Batter After Another, however, it has much more on its mind than thrills.

One Battle After Another’s opening sequence, an assault on an internment camp, delivers an extra sting in 2025, as does an extended sequence of ICE raids and the protest response. Anderson, applying his considerable talent to action sequences, creates thrilling moments that share the off-kilter tension found in some of the most inspired sequences in his 1999 psychological drama, Magnolia, and his 2002 dark comedy, Punch Drunk Love.

Where an action-minded director might play these sequences for cheap thrills or sensationalized violence, Anderson focuses on the human stakes. He knows that, in the words of Brian Cox’s portrayal of screenwriting guru Jack McKee in Spike Jonze’s Adaptation (2002), “Wow them in the end and you’ve got a hit.” The climactic chase sequence in One Battle After Another is thrilling, and the film ends on a hopeful note.

It took longer than expected for conservative news outlets to get up in arms about One Battle After Another, and it has been a surprisingly muted reaction overall. A film with a huge left-leaning star that features sympathetic portrayals of left-wing radicalized groups seems like an impossible-to-resist target to drum up pearl-clutching, but it’s been less of a lightning rod than expected on that front. Perhaps some MAGA viewers enjoy Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest.

One Battle After Another has several scenes and lines that seem primed to provoke right-wing ire, from the harrowing ICE raids and the deployment of a bad actor to create a reason for ICE to fire on protestors. Not least Steven Lockjaw’s (Sean Penn) trumped-up reason for invading Bactan Cross, a “sanctuary city” where he suspects his biracial daughter is hiding. At one point, he literally says, “Give me a reason to deploy there”.

There are other “pokes” in One Battle After Another, as well, such as the darkly comic portrayal of the Christmas Adventurer’s Club, the elite white power organization Lockjaw is desperate to join, which makes a thinly veiled reference to a certain faith-based, anti-queer fast food chain that’s closed on Sundays. In another sequence, Benicio Del Toro’s character calls Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob a “bad hombre”, a term that Trump used to stoke the fires of anti-immigrant prejudice. Del Toro’s character also has a poster of Christopher Reeve’s Superman on the wall of his dojo; an image that “illegal” immigrant Americans embrace.

There has been some criticism that DiCaprio’s character is mostly acted upon, but that is inaccurate. His bathrobe and grungy look recall Jeff Bridges in the Coen Bros.’ The Big Lebowski (1998). However, One Battle After Another takes its time establishing that Bob used his explosives expertise as part of The French 75, the film’s fictional militant revolutionary group. In the storyline’s present, he is raising his daughter as a single parent and dealing with his feelings about being in hiding. He is resourceful in his own chaotic way.

One Battle After Another is not above criticizing the disorganization of the left and of white allies’ reactions to violence against them. The film goes out of its way to show Bob’s panic against Sensei Sergio St. Carlos’ (Benicio Del Toro) calm response, “We have been laid siege for hundreds of years; don’t get selfish”.

One Battle After Another is also a story of how parents can encourage and empower their children to fight against fascism, and how Willa, played by Chase Infiniti, takes center stage to save herself. Infiniti gives one of the best performances in the film, holding her own in scenes with Sean Penn’s intimidating character.

Teayana Taylor owns the first stretch of the film. As Perfidia Beverly Hills, he is utterly riveting, and her presence looms over the rest of the film after she leaves the screen. There has been a mixed reaction to her character, as she is sexualized and singularly focused on revolution. We expect motherhood to soften or shift women’s priorities, but we readily accept a revolution-minded man who backburners fatherhood in films and in life. 

DiCaprio’s star power provides him with the best opportunities and directors, but he has routinely chosen to apply his talents to roles that aren’t exactly heroic star turns, such as his characters in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (2019). There are some similarities between his performance in One Battle After Another and the Rick Dalton character in terms of comedy (his phone conversations with The French 75 headquarters are hilarious), but he is surprisingly convincing as a trauma-scarred, paranoid father, too. 

Sean Penn’s performance is one of his best. Lockjaw recalls scenery-chewing villains like Col. Hans Landa in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009), mixed with the vocal and physical ticks of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., yet it is also complex and chilling in unexpected ways. Some aspects of his character threaten to make him cartoonish, but Penn and the script add layers, as his tragic worship of racist elites, coupled with a lust for Black women, becomes his ultimate downfall. 

Lockjaw’s fate reinforces that the true war is class war. Even a wannabe racist elite isn’t good enough for the true racist elites. It recalls the identification with wealth and power that propelled Donald Trump’s popularity in 2016, and recalls the quote attributed to President Lyndon Johnson (but not verified), “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you are picking his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”  

While the ultimate financial outcome is still to be determined, those who made the assumption that Paul Thomas Anderson is incapable of making a crowd-pleaser must be dining on their proverbial hats. One Battle After Another delivers excitement, laughs, and a moving, satisfying conclusion that is apparently connecting with audiences, given the “A” Cinemascore. It is performing better in blue states than red states, but that’s unsurprising.

Warner has had a phenomenal year at the box office with hits like the aforementioned Sinners and Jared Hess’ fantasy epic, A Minecraft Movie. Even if One Battle After Another fails to recoup its budget, despite being a critical success and connecting with its audience, its power will endure in ways that the quickly forgotten cash cows simply won’t.