Published November 3, 2025
BY THEODORA MILLER
Though entertaining and star-studded, “One Battle After Another,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s new action-packed drama starring Leonardo DiCaprio, obscures the plot as well as the point with cutesy cameos and politically correct side characters, missing opportunity after opportunity to ultimately land among this year’s middling movie season.
The story centers on an imagined revolutionary group called the French 75. The opening focuses on Prefidia
(Teyana Taylor), the group’s leader, and her increasingly twisted romance with the slightly evil Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn) and a fellow revolutionary “Ghetto” Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio). The first half-hour is cinematic and compelling, where Warner Bros. appears to have succeeded in crafting a political film with action, intrigue and a great soundtrack. The studio’s investment in good actors pays off.
Leonardo DiCaprio portrays a retired revolutionary in a new collaboration with director Paul Thomas Anderson. Courtesy of WARNER BROS. PICTURES
That is, until the second half, when the group’s leaders are captured. Perfidia gives up names to avoid jail time, and from there, the film’s coherence starts to fall apart. Sixteen years pass, and DiCaprio’s character is shown living under cover in a fictional sanctuary city.
What once felt fast-paced and polished, now seems rushed and unfocused, with the film hurried as though each plot thread has been abandoned. Although the movie is based on the lengthy novel “Vineland” by Thomas Pynchon–Anderson adapted Pynchon’ “Inherent Vice” in 2014– it seems Anderson couldn’t choose what to cut and what to keep.
So what did Anderson keep? Everything. The film is flooded with numerous side plots and one-off characters. On their own almost all are intriguing or comedic, but together they seem convoluted and exhausts the audience by forcing them to pay close attention to erratic anecdotes.
The movie shoots itself in the foot, cutting out a key character early on. Taylor gives the performance of a lifetime: even though she’s only on screen for the first half hour, everyone will leave the almost three-hour film thinking of her.
By the 90-minute mark, the film meanders into car chases and explosions–a sharp contrast to the tight, plot-rich beginning. While some may enjoy such spectacle, the film’s shifting tone confuses who the target demographic is. Is it hip young people who agree with the French 75’s mission? Older adults revisiting ‘90s icons? Or middle-schoolers who want to see things blow up?
This isn’t a case of mass appeal so much as mass dissatisfaction, where the film flip-flops until it alienates everyone and sabotages its chances at appeasing anyone.
The blockbuster is buoyed by the money and talent poured into it. Make no mistake, it’s entertaining and often laugh-out-loud funny without compromising intensity. But viewers may still leave wondering what went wrong.
Had the plotlines been consolidated and certain stunts left on the cutting room floor, this could have been legendary. Instead, it’s forgettably fine.
8/10
