One Battle After Another

Paul Thomas Anderson's epic political thriller is the most hotly anticipated film of the year. The sprawling action movie was shot in VistaVision and is even playing at a few theaters in its native format. Unfortunately, the film is not the rich tapestry of complex ideas and thrilling action that the early word of mouth would have us believe. I found it quite a shallow and ugly picture. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Bob, a burnt-out former member of a revolutionary group. Bob went into hiding after the birth of his daughter, Willa, and the capture of his wife, a militant revolutionary named Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor). Sixteen years later, government forces target Bob and Willa, prompting their old network of revolutionaries to attempt a rescue.

As a narrative, there's not much to this 162-minute film; it's more a combination of a vibes movie mixed with an epic chase picture sprinkled with cynical political commentary and dark comedy. Apart from a few questionable needle drops, Jonny Greenwood's tediously relentless piano-plunking score seems to run under the majority of the picture to keep the tension tight. Greenwood's work here is reminiscent of Elliot Goldenthal's bank heist music in Heat by way of the Wicked Witch/Miss Gulch Theme from The Wizard of Oz. For much of its running time, One Battle After Another feels like a three-hour version of the Heat bank heist sequence, yet this is somehow a drawback, not an attribute. Perhaps my lack of engagement was the result of how visually dull this movie is. I can't believe I have to ask this question again, but what is the point of shooting on film in a large format process if everything in your movie would have felt the same had you shot it on 16mm? Most of this film consists of bland close-ups and medium shots, many of which are under- or over-exposed; I assume this is intentional, but why? Aside from an exciting and suspenseful car chase climax, the action sequences here are nothing to write home about—just a lot of flash and bang.

The eclectic cast does their best in underwritten roles. A scenery chewing Sean Penn is able to make something of the villainous Col. Steven J. Lockjaw, who is relentlessly pursuing Bob and Willa in order to further his own personal pursuit but it's a one note role that grows less and less powerful the more we see him. Only Benicio del Toro as Willa's Karate sensei, Sergio St. Carlos, lands his role with the kind of thematic power I'd hope a movie like this could deliver. This soft-spoken character is also a leader of the undocumented community in the sanctuary city where most of the characters live. Del Toro's performance succeeds in making the point that the true revolutionaries are the calm, quiet, strategic thinkers who know how to prepare, how to protect those in their care, and how to choose their battles. Sergio knows how, and more importantly when, to fight. The juxtaposition of the way he handles himself and how Bob behaves is the one place where the film makes its points in ways that are subtle, authentic, and humorous. And it's absolutely correct not to have del Toro's character at the center of this story. He and Anderson perfectly nail the thematic points with this character's limited screen time. Still, this all could have been conveyed with equal power in much the same way with DiCaprio's character downgraded to a supporting player.

DiCaprio plays Bob in much the same disheveled and constantly overwhelmed way Joaquin Phoenix played the lead in PTA's Inherent Vice, which is perhaps not surprising, given that both films are drawn from Pynchon novels. DiCaprio's Bob also has shades of The Dude in a higher-stakes version of The Big Lebowski. But, for the most part, this is a one-note performance Xeroxed from other (better) times DiCaprio has played a not-too-smart guy heavily under the influence of substances. It's a character and a performance I'm getting pretty tired of. We just saw DiCaprio play the burned-out, washed-up, dimwitted alcoholic movie star in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood. That was a role he was able to embody far more effectively because, not only is there a real character in Rick Dalton rather than the string of "Dude" mannerisms Bob Ferguson is, it was entirely appropriate for him to be at the center of that end-of an-era Hollywood story. It's not appropriate to have such a character as the protagonist in this story. As played by DiCaprio, the part of Bob Ferguson feels like a one-dimensional retread of Rick Dalton, just without the depth, humor, or relevance, and with weed in place of booze.

In terms of political commentary, for such a long picture ostensibly about contemporary revolutionaries, there is shockingly little explored in terms of how these networks function or, on the flip side, how the government and military intersect with the shady white supremacist cult Penn's character is trying to join. It's a little too easy just to point out that they do intersect—in an absurdly staged sequence involving an elaborate underground luxury bunker beneath a Beverly Hills home. Compare the cursory way revolutionary culture and the intricacies of these networks are depicted here to the ways PTA dramatically and suspensefully explores the ins and outs of the oil business in There Will Be Blood or how he comedically weaves information about the inner workings of the porno industry in Boogie Nights. Watching this movie, I couldn't help but think of how the logistics and complexities of violent activism are handled in the 2022 film How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Granted, that movie was based on a non-fiction, call-to-arms book rather than a postmodern fiction pastiche, but still, a movie coming out these days about revolutionaries has a responsibility to be more substantive, and not just use them as a backdrop for a shaggy suspense thriller about a middle-aged white guy stoner on the run from goofily evil government forces.

Both Lockjaw and Bob are depicted as comical figures, one dangerously focused and lethal with some serious flaws that will lead to his undoing, and one paranoid and incompetent with a good heart that will redeem him. But just because Bob Ferguson is not painted as the "hero" of One Battle, doesn't mean he's not the protagonist of this movie—and a very dull protagonist at that. One Battle has been lauded as some kind of rallying cry or call to arms for the revolutionary spirit, but it is the exact opposite. It's a movie that elevates the detached couch potato who shrugs off responsibility for the state of the world.

The film tries to redeem itself somewhat in terms of how Bob and Willa are depicted at the very end, where the juxtaposition of their two characters' reactions to unrest is spot on. However, it's all too typical of Hollywood to end a movie this way, rather than actually centering the movie on the potentially more interesting character whose story has rarely, if ever, been told on film. I guess we're supposed to feel optimistic that Willa's generation is going to right the wrongs caused by those who've brought this country to the state it finds itself in in 2025. For me, this ending feels like a justification for kicking the can down the road to the folks who will have to fix things or die trying because they'll simply have no other option.

If this movie was meant as an honest critique of those of us who are Bob's age, it would work for me a little better. But the shallow lantern-hanging dialogue doesn't compensate for the deficiency of thinness and feels tacked on. For example, Starletta DuPois as Willa's grandmother telling Bob at the turn into the second act that he's not a real revolutionary like her daughter or the long line of Black woman she's descended from, does not feel earned. It comes off like a filmmaker who is all too aware of what movie he's making trying to cover his ass with his critics. This is especially true when Perfidia Beverly Hills is just as sloppy and inept, and ultimately as week, as Bob—she just doesn't get to have any inner life or redemption arc.

One thing I will say for PTA is that at least his political thriller has a perspective, unlike Alex Garland's similarly themed but cowardly neutral Civil War from the previous year. Yet, like Ari Aster's Eddington, which was released a few months earlier, there's a detached, mocking quality to the politics of this movie that feels all too safe and privileged. Yes, it's easy to laugh at people like this from the comfort of the sofa you lay on all day smoking week, but are they really that funny? Are they a joke? I don't see the joke in real life. Not in the revolutionaries of the past&mdashthe Weather Underground folks this fictional movement is clearly based on, nor in the desperate people fighting the slide into fascism today. It's not that PTA's depiction of revolutionaries and government operatives feels insincere, but his snide humor, narrative focus, and portrayal of violence feel like they come from a writer with no firsthand or even secondhand experience, who has read many books and watched The Battle of Algiers on TV while getting high, as his protagonist does. We don't palpably feel life and death stakes, and that's a major flaw for a movie on this subject.

I'll be surprised if this $130–175M movie becomes the hit it is predicted to be. I do not see a wide appeal, but what do I know? One thing that is patently obvious, though, is that there is nothing in this picture that justifies the big 70mm, IMAX, and VistaVision rollout. Just as I'm growing tired of Leonardo DiCaprio's dim, frantic, stoned or high shtick, and of blockbuster and prestige pictures that center on characters like this, I'm becoming increasingly weary of filmmakers making a big deal about the large-format film processes they're shooting with when they don't utilize these tools to much of an effect. With PTA and cinematographer Michael Bauman's largely pedestrian framing and lighting, it feels a little silly to be making a big deal about this being presented on film.

Of course, I will watch this movie again, as my city is one of only four in the world that has a cinema screening the picture in actual VistaVision, with a temporarily installed horizontal-thread projector at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. I certainly have thrilled at a few films shot recently in large formats, like The Hatefull Eight, Dunkirk, and The Brutalist, but after making the effort to seek out the best celuloid presentations of Phantom Thread and Licorice Pizza, Interstellar and Oppenheimer, Nope and Sinners, I think it's time we started to refer to some of these large-format releases as what they are: an expensive gimmick that bears little resemblance to what these processess were designed for and what they are truly capable of.


FOLLOW UP: I wrote this review after screening the 70mm print that we were about to run at the Somerville Theatre. That was essentially a private screening, just me and our head projectionist, and a movie like this one can feel far more effective when seen with a crowd. So, two weeks later, I headed to the Coolidge to watch One Battle "as it was meant to be seen." The first thing I can say is that the VistaVision print was demonstratively better then the 70mm. The sharpness, resolution, color, and compositions were superior. The shots are framed for the 1.50:1 aspect ratio, which makes many shots look awkward when cropped for 70mm or standard DCP. Plus, the print was clearly made off the original camera negative. There was none of the noise or digital artifacts I saw on the otherwise pristine 70mm print that our theater ran. The close-ups of Sean Penn's head and face were certainly impressive, and I can only imagine what they were like on a giant IMAX screen.

But the print was just 2 weeks into its run, and already noticeable, consistent damage affected nearly every reel. This observation is not a knock on the Coolidge projection staff, since apparently all four cinemas running One Battle in VistaVision had to have their prints replaced after just a couple weeks of the most careful, meticulous handling. That fact alone tells you all you should need to know to comprehend what a stupid, wasteful, arrogant gimmick it is to release a picture in a format that was never meant to be used for theatrical presentation. VistaVision was always designed for capturing images, not projecting them. All those great VistaVision pictures made during the format's less than ten-year run of active use—The Searchers, Vertigo, White Christmas, etc.—were released on traditional 35mm and 70mm, with the large format negative yielding a superior image when reduced to theatrical release prints.

We've reached the level of auteurism where simply choosing a format counts as directorial vision (even when that format is employed in an inept way). Watching this movie, I'm all the more convinced that the vast majority of moviegoers decide, consciously or unconsciously, if they're going to like a movie before they actually see it. They base much of their criteria on whether or not they like the filmmaker (sometimes for reasons that have nothing to do with that person's actual filmmaking), or for things a director, actor, or studio might be trying to do, rather than succeeding in doing. This is the only way I can rationalize the rapturous embrace of this sloppy, shallow, bloated, technically unimpressive picture.

And the reception has been rapturous. I was wrong about the possible lack of audience for this movie or it's ability to make back its massive budget. As we slide into the final days of awards season it is becoming clearer that One Battle After Another is going to end up the most awarded and possibly most remembered film of 2025, though Sinners is the film that made awards history and may spawn a cinematic universe. One Battle After Another is, to be sure, a thrill ride, and the climactic car chase sequence is pretty spectacular and feels like the one good use of the VistaVision format. I'll also have no problem if Benicio del Toro wins Best Supporting Actor for his 13 minutes of screen time. But none of that changes my distaste for One Battle, a proudly unfocused, misguided, self-indulgent work, and the first movie that has ever made me ashamed to be Gen-X.