One Battle After Another review

 One Battle After Another (OBAA) is too young to feature on the 2015 edition of the top 1000 films of all time, but it won a whole slieu of Oscars at the 2025 ceremony including Best Picture, Director, Writing - all for Paul Thomas Anderson - and Best Supporting Actor - so I just had to watch this film.

Pat Calhoun (Leonardo Dicaprio) is a washed-up, former revolutionary who used to be the scourge of right-wing governments ever by leading the activity/terrorist group 'the French 75.' Sixteen years after a devastating defeat, Calhoun is a paranoid stoner living off-grid with his step-daughter Charlene (Chase Infiniti. Charlene's mother? Another member of the French 75- Perfidia (Teyana Taylor.) Captured by the tyrannical Colonel Steven Lockjaw - she was given the choice of imprisonent or freedom and sleeping with him. She chose the latter before disappearing into witness protection. However, when Lockjaw returns to threaten Charlene, Calhoun is forced to come out of retirement along with the help of Charlene's karate teacher Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio Del Toro.)

If you're going to watch this film, then I would recommend to be patient. Paul Thomas Anderson is not known for his long films - just like Magnolia and There Will be Blood - OBAA is over two and a half hours. It also takes a while to get going. The first thirty minutes shows the vicious actions of the French 75 as they cause chaos attacking government facilities and robbing city banks. It was all accompanied with pretty cheesy and cringy dialogue.

But if you get past the thirty minutes, you will be rewarded with a thrilling film. It starred Leonardo Dicaprio in one of his most unlikely roles ever. You see Leo Dicaprio as the star and you would expect him to be the one shooting at all the bad guys and taking the glory, but, if anything, it's every other character that shows heroism. Calhoun is merely a paranoid shell of his former revolutionary self. Don't get me wrong, Dicaprio did the paranoia well, but I kept expecting him to snap out of it and for him to become a hero. 

Yet that never really happened. Dicaprio did get a Best Actor nod, although I'm not sure if his role was worthy of such an honour. Although I would say that he was very funny in this film - this was probably one of his funniest film roles especially when he is trying and failing to remember all of the secret codes the French 75 used to communicate with each other. 

I cannot deny anything from the always terrific Sean Penn who won Best Supporting Actor for playing Steven Lockjaw - this was his third Oscar too. He beat out fellow co-star Benicio Del Toro - more on him later. Lockjaw was a great character and Penn played him well. He played him with enough ferocity to make him scary, but with enough restraint not to turn him into a cartoon. A deserving win indeed.

Del Toro would have also been well-deserving of a second Best Supporting Oscar win. His character of Sergio soon becomes one of Calhoun's biggest allies and I enjoyed seeing the two characters play off each other. It was a fun role played with lots of levity. But enough with the men, the women were great too. 

This was Chase Infiniti's debut role and she had great chemistry with Dicaprio, as she played his adoptive daughter. It was also great seeing her and all the other women characters like Perfidia getting stuck in the action. I feel like in modern films there's always a disingenuous need to showing "strong female characters who don't need no man," yet in OBAA, Charlene and Perfidia came across as nothing but genuine and authentic.

Prior to OBAA, Paul Thomas Anderson was probably one of the best directors not to have won any Oscars -  before OBAA, he currently had zero Oscars out of eleven nominations. However, this was remedied as OBAA netted him three Oscars. He really proved he was a master of his craft with some terrific cinematography especially in the film's climatic chase sequence.

Like I say, OBAA is too young to feature on any top 1000 films of all time list. Surely, it will feature on future editions. But that isn't the question. Was it truly worthy of the Best Film Oscar? I'm not so sure. It was a good film ... maybe even great. But best? I don't know...