Paul Thomas Anderson’s seriocomic, politically tinted action flick makes for an exhilarating, richly textured wild ride. Early Best Picture contender, anyone?

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER
162 minutes; R; directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Critic’s Grade: A

No burying the lede here: “One Battle After Another” attacks the screen with big ideas, a textured storyline, remarkable performances by a diverse cast, eye-popping action sequences, surprisingly funny bits and disturbing allusions to contemporary political currents.

Yes, the multiple references to the type of unrestrained and unapologetic authoritarianism wielded by the administration now in power sometimes feel a bit too real. And yet Paul Thomas Anderson’s 10th feature, far from being a mere political screed, is a bustling, bristling piece of bravado filmmaking, its various thematic elements all wrapped inside a narrative focused on a tender, feelgood portrayal of a father-daughter bond.

Sprawling, but in a good way, “One Battle After Another” is energetic and bracing in a manner that many of the genre hopper’s other films — some brilliant, some messy — are not. The new movie, arguably Anderson’s best film since 2007’s “There Will Be Blood,” offers echoes of anti-establishment favorites like Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” and Mike Nichols’ “Catch-22” but without the straight-up absurdism; “Battle” is more grounded in a milieu resembling reality.

Leonardo DiCaprio, as shaggy haired, dope-smoking bomb maker Bob Ferguson, uses expert comic timing to create one of the actor’s most indelible performances. His significant other is Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor, in a smoldering, lit-fuse turn), the tough, sexy, swaggering leader of anti-capitalist group French 75, a band of revolutionaries somewhat in the mold of real-life ‘70s Leftist organization the Symbionese Liberation Army. Bob’s demolitions expertise is a turn-on for Perfidia, who uses a show of physical domination to get her partner’s motor running.

French 75 robs banks, blows up corporate headquarter buildings and government offices and, during one of the film’s most thrilling set pieces, frees hundreds of immigrant detainees — men, women and children — from a border-adjacent camp jointly operated by the military and police forces. Sound familiar?

Anderson’s story, adapted from a Thomas Pynchon novel (as was the director-writer’s 2014 “Inherent Vice”) is essentially split into two parts, the first taking place circa 16 years ago.

The revolutionaries’ nemesis, steely but twisted Col. Steven J. Lockjaw, played by an alternately scary and riotous Sean Penn, is determined to destroy his human targets by any means necessary. The grizzled army lifer, who has very particular taste in women, makes an unexpected love/lust connection — no spoilers — in the film’s first half.

Fast forward to the present, and medal of honor winner Lockjaw is desperate to join the prestigious Christmas Adventurers Club, a super-secret cabal of elite, wealthy white nationalists focused on remaking the country by way of “racial purification.” The oily, reptilian men, shot in extreme close-up and played by actors including Tony Goldwyn and James Downey, pledge to rid America of “dangerous lunatics, haters and punk trash.” They say hello to one another with hearty greetings of “Merry Christmas” and conclude every meeting with a chorus of “All hail St. Nick!” It’s all ridiculous and creepy and, yes, reminiscent of the kind of language spoken privately, and even publicly, by some of the powerful folks whose visages constantly flicker across our TV screens, particularly since Jan. 20.

Lockjaw’s new mission, to raid a Latino sanctuary city and track down the long-disappeared revolutionary Ferguson and his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti, brightly shining), sets the story’s second half in motion. It’s an extended game of cats and mice, with the colonel chasing the father and daughter, his forces coming down hard on the Latino men, women and children of Baktan Cross, a fictional northern California town, and a different Christmas Adventurers Club member trying to track down Ferguson, Willa and Lockjaw.

It all makes for the wildest of cinematic wild rides, bolstered by the agile 35mm camera work of Anderson regular Michael Bauman. The goings-on encompass runs through tunnels and across rooftops, speedy car chases over impossibly hilly roads in desert country and a visit to a convent full of rebel nuns known as the Sisters of the Brave Beaver. There are also sequences involving the use of a portable paternity test, shouted exchanges of a verbal secret code involving the titles of ‘60s sitcoms, and the derring-do of a wily, kindly and resourceful martial arts sensei slyly played by Benicio del Toro, one of the movie’s not-so-secret weapons.

The film additionally benefits from a creative, eclectic score by Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead), who deploys clanking solo-piano figures, sudden blasts of strings, and roaring percussion. Not to mention the artful use of vintage radio tracks, including The Delfonics’ “Ready or Not Here I Come,” The Shirelles’ “Soldier Boy,” Gil-Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” Steely Dan’s “Dirty Work” and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “American Girl.” Plus Beyonce’s “Freedom,” with Kendrick Lamar, along with several other contemporary tunes.

A final thought: The exhilarating “One Battle After Another” is the first movie I’ve seen this year that made me want to see it again. Immediately, and on a big screen.

Copyright 2025 by Philip Booth. All rights reserved.
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