One Battle After Another (2025) — The Long Boxd Review

A Simple Narrative Packed Into A Complex Series of Motion.

“You don’t have to be in a revolution to be a revolutionary. Just have empathy and be open to change.

I can’t believe my entire timeline got to see this before me. It’s not fair man, this film is what fuels a cinephile for another 10 years

I remember being a young lad wishing Leo would win an Oscar for Wolf or for Django, and being so disappointed when he didn’t. Imagine my reaction if he doesn’t for this.” — My Letterboxd

The movie starts with two characters running. And you could say, that’s how the whole film will be. Relentlessly, it is a movie in three distinct arcs that are not equal in length but equal in significance. Act 1 is the entire pretext of the film, from Pat (DiCaprio) and Perfidia’s (Taylor) time together. Act 2 starts with the slight cooldown from Willa (Infiniti) doing Karate to Pat getting “arrested”. And Act 3 starts right from Pat escaping being a captive on to the end of the film. I point this out because this film felt very traditional in a sense. The purposeful use of acts and breaks. The color grading feeling filmy and vintage. The composition of the shots were either handheld or a series of close-ups and extreme wide shots that leave so much room for air and thought. I honestly felt that, save for the allegories to the modern politics and the time period of the story, this film could be shot in the 70s as it could now. Well…except the politics are very important here.

Right, so is this film a political film? Yes and no. I came away from this film, both times, that this was a family drama action flick. It’s about a father who is trying his best to get back to his daughter while the daughter starts to learn about the father’s past. I saw someone question, on Twitter, about what was the point of Pat’s character? For most scenes he wasn’t really doing much. All of Act 2, he was being led around by the French 75 members and by Sensei Sergio (Del Toro). And in Act 3, he was more or less just driving around the hills. But I beg to differ, Pat’s side of the story is his feverishly intense drive to reconnect with his daughter and give her the shelter she needs from all of the nonsense that occurs. Willa’s side entangles with Lockjaw’s (Penn) story and becomes the focal point of the narrative, she’s the main character for sure. But Pat is important, because he’s driving the family aspect of the film. He’s leading the drama. Willa and Lockjaw handle the action and political side to the film. Heck, Lockjaw says enough slurs to make any reasonable viewer squirm at how easily Sean Penn gets those words out.

And that leads us nicely into the performances. Leonardo DiCaprio (is my favorite Hollywood actor, and has been since I was young) deserves an Oscars nod. No kidding. Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA) uses so many close-up shots of characters’ faces to capture their reaction changing due to the events around them. And DiCaprio (Pat/Bob) is a master at those. There were plenty of moments where resting the camera on his face and having him go at it was enough to sell the scene. As humorous as it was, the frusteration with the ‘customer service’ at the French 75 hotline was perfect. Or when he finally sees his daughter again through the scope of a rifle and he goes from fear to relief to concern so quickly. I want to point out that DiCaprio doesn’t usually take on a role where he’s powerful. In the two other roles I consider to be his best such as in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) and Django Unchained (2012); DiCaprio is a different beast here. He’s vulnerable, weak, silly, and messy. For most of his screen time after Act 1, he’s high as a kite. Yes, he was also dorky in Don’t Look Up (2021) and also vulnerable in The Revenant (2015), but I don’t truly consider those films as his peak performances. He’s a coward here. An addict. But also a father. And it’s peak.

This is similarly done by Sean Penn. I honestly think Penn was the best performer in this film. His portrayal is beyond words and expressions. He becomes a true white nationalist. Everything from his staggered and wide set walk to his lipsmacking and tic-like nodding. It all resonated as a true soldier boy and sold the audience on him being a bonafide military man. It even makes his “fascination” with black women more poignant as he truly does love black women but is also closeted as it betrays his need to be an example of a perfect white man.

The third performance I think should be put up for the Oscars is Benicio Del Toro. His portrayal is so smooth. His character could’ve been just a guy. But I felt that Act 2 was his act. He both stole the camera from DiCaprio and inserted the role of another revolution into this film. For me, I understood Sergio as a representation that revolutions are happening all around us. Even if you’re not explicitly in one, as long as you find a fault in the system, you’re actions are part of the revolution. That was Sergio, he was leading his own practice but also made the time to take part in Pat’s revolution. And the people who aided him, who also aided Pat, were ready to help because even if they weren’t in the French 75, they stood in solidarity for a cause as grand as theirs.

I don’t think you are allowed to talk about this film without mentioning how awesome Chase Infiniti is. She’s a relatively new actress, and this is her first major work. But it doesn’t show. Off camera she’s been very charismatic in helping promote this film. Especially with the age dynamic between her and DiCaprio helping to sell the father/daughter aspect. But on camera she does not fall flat with the same situations as Penn and DiCaprio. The camera rests on her face and she eats it up. My favorite scene where her performance shines is when she is freed from the militia that Lockjaw hired to kill her, and she tries to start up the car and even though we all know it’s not going to start because she doesn’t have the key, she keeps pressing and looking out the windscreen knowing that sitting here in silent desperation is better than going into a room where death is fresh. I definitely felt that she understood her role well. A tough and upstart teen who is ready to take on the challenge but is still vulnerable enough to be affected by the onslaught of a whole new worldview in a matter of days. She cries with realism, and I understand her pain. But then she shoots the minigun just like her mother did, and the parallel is more than the action but also the mindset. The revolution lives on from mother to child. Chase infiniti does an excellent job at being both lost and found, alternating between being confused about the life her parents had to understanding who she is now.

And a last shout out to Teyana Taylor. Taylor’s role may be small but she didn’t minimize her ability to play the cold femme. Actually what’s special about her performance isn’t how she’s a sexy leader but that Taylor is able to show us the downsides of being a new parent. The montage of her being listless, angry, jealous, etc. of her daughter and her new relationship with Pat was what made me really look at Taylor and respect her acting. It’s easy to be one character, but she was two. Or even three if you want to count her escape from witness protection and motherhood as an other facet of the character that needs to be distinctly portrayed. For a role with such a short amount of screen time, she left a presence.

I loved the cinematography for it’s close-ups on faces to get the micro expressions. The wide shots with tons of empty space to focus on the subject or bring in foreground/background movement. The centering of the subject in the frame to let the atmosphere weigh on them. And the violent use of jump cuts to make us as disoriented as the story. It’s crazy and I think that’s on purpose. There’s a ton of juxtaposition used to help reflect the perspectives of multiple characters’ stories together. I think I only saw one fade cut in an important moment, and that’s kind of insane to see.

The part I really want to discuss is the story and the world of the film. I think the reason why this film speaks out to me so much is because the characters exist in a world that is basicaly ours but perhaps a few months in advance. It starts with giving us context, that our main characters exist in a world slightly beyond the ours. We don’t all look behind our backs, speak in code, and carry trust devices – at least I hope not. So, knowing that the characters are revolutionaries, we are set up for a sequence of events that don’t typically occur for the regular person. Or shouldn’t. I think some of the most striking moments for me were actually when Billy Coyote gets black bagged in broad daylight or when the high school kids get detained for almost no reason.

When the film slowly transitions from a political story to a drama, I admire that the politcal context isn’t dropped. The scenes with Lockjaw, the Christmas Adventurers Club, and Sergio all continue to show us how the amount of racism, oppression, and fascism remain at the forefront of the scene. None of this would be happening if it weren’t for the government’s treatment of the people. So yeah, even though Act 3 is very much about Willa and Pat’s chase and reunion, small hints such as the militia men calling Avanti Q (Eric Schweig) “Red” bring us back to the larger picture.

A feature that I really appreciated, and maybe this was in the source material or not, was the Christmas Adventurers Club. They play a very important role in dramaticing and parodying the real world version. I don’t think it’s outrageous of me to say that we live in a society that is run by people who may share the Chrismas Adventurers’ motives. And yes, every moment these guys were on screen my theater audience laughed. Such as when they want to “stop punks” and salute each other with “Merry Christmas”. It’s almost like a little boys’ treehouse club and they don’t want the new kids to know about it. Except that this is the country, and they really hate everyone else – even praising Avanti Q’s abilities and using him but still denying his claim as a human being because he’s not fully white. I also liked that the one member shown driving only drives Shelbys, a true American car.

The secondary message of the film is the revolution. Like I said, this is a family drama first. But the end of the film doesn’t let us ignore what ends up happening. Like Prefidia’s mothers said, revolution runs in the family. And while Pat was the “rock” at first, now he’s more trusting of the revolutionary spirit. As long as power is abused, people will recognize it. I liked how the political nature of the film isn’t complex. The ordeal they go under is because of politics. Race politics specifically, against Black, Native, and Mexicans. But I don’t think the film tries to deny other forms of freedom being stepped on. And I think Del Toro’s role helps to solidify that subtext’s stay in the film.

There was one moment where I felt like the film may have skipped a beat, but on rewatch I realized how it was actually even more true in it’s portrayal. There’s a specific scene where high school kids are being detained for not ratting out Willa to Lockjaw’s crew. All the friends lie about Willa not owning a phone. But the non-binary friend, at the last moment, turns around and admits to Willa having a phone. At first this felt like a betrayal to me. PTA goes so far in touting how the film will convey different kinds of marginalized people in a positive light, and the whole film is “woke”. But on the rewatch I felt different. Think about it. A non-binary person being hauled off to jail. For anyone else, they have to worry about race politics in the police system, but that individual has to worry about race and gender. The stakes are higher for them. And as such, it makes sense that at the last moment as they are being hauled off, the fear becomes real and suddenly they need to worry about themselves a little more than Willa. It’s cruel but it’s realistic. It’s just as realistic as Bob being super woke and a revolutionary but still says the r-word when he’s frustrated – it betrays the “wokeness” of the film for the sake of realism.

I was worried this movie was going to fall off. That the action would lull and the ending wouldn’t hit. But it did. A moment around when Willa lands at her rendezvous point, the film chases Pat in a frenzy and then after that it becomes slower. But I think the Lockjaw and Willa conversation leading into the highway chase were fast enough to get the movie back to speed.

I almost want to say “make movies great again” but they already are and it’s way too close to something the antagonists of this film would say. So instead, I’m so glad to be able to watch this at release. PTA’s ability to create films that capture the small of America while be relatable to the majority and look bloody good whilst doing so. Almost felt like I was watching a 70s film at times, maybe something like The Passenger (1975). And damn, I love how this movie blew up to the mainstream. I’m proud to see my generation fall in love with cinema, there’s something about it that restores hope for humanity within me.

10/10

Now it’s between this, The Long Walk, Sinners, and Weapons as movie of the year for me.