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Cinema Review: One Battle After Another (2025) – an exhilarating revolutionary romp that lacks the depth of those films it attempts to emulate!

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Cinema Review: One Battle After Another (2025)

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Written by Paul Thomas Anderson

Inspired by Vineland by Thomas Pynchon

Produced by Adam Somner, Sara Murphy, Paul Thomas Anderson

Main Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti, Wood Harris, Tony Goldwyn, Kevin Tighe, Shayna McHayle, etc.

Cinematography by Michael Bauman

Music by Jonny Greenwood

*** CONTAINS SPOILERS ***

It’s a brave filmmaker that quotes one of the greatest revolutionary films of all time during it’s runtime, namely Battle of Algiers (1966). But Paul Thomas Anderson’s formidable cinematic career more than earns him the right to quote a film as towering as The Battle of Algiers (1966) in his latest release One Battle After Another (2025).

Across works like Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999), he has demonstrated a mastery of ensemble storytelling and emotional crescendo; with Punch-Drunk Love (2002) he revealed a gift for intimate, offbeat romance; and in There Will Be Blood (2007) and Phantom Thread (2017) he proved himself one of the most rigorous visual stylists and psychological dramatists of his generation. Such a body of work grants him the authority to converse with cinema’s political masterpieces, even if his more recent Licorice Pizza (2021) felt comparatively diffuse and lacking in urgency. His filmography, at its strongest, stands as evidence of a filmmaker deeply attuned to the legacies and possibilities of the medium.

Having said that, Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966) wields revolutionary power through its raw immediacy, embedding viewers in the lived experience of anti-colonial struggle with a documentary-like realism that blurs the line between record and re-creation. By contrast, Anderson’s One Battle After Another (2025) approaches revolution less as lived history than as a cinematic genre to be emulated, drawing on the tropes and textures of upheaval without grounding itself in the direct urgency of political struggle. Where Pontecorvo conjures revolution as something happening before our eyes, Anderson refracts it through the prism of style, making revolution as much a matter of aesthetic construction as lived reality. It is during its lengthy running time extremely entertaining though.

The opening hour is fast-paced and crams in a lot of action and personality. It establishes a fine ensemble cast, strong characters, striking palette and compelling themes which bring to life Anderson’s sharply written and fantastically filmed screenplay. The narrative focuses on “Ghetto” Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), lovers and leaders of the far-left French 75, who storm detention centres, bomb banks, and sabotage power grids, while their soon-to-become nemesis—Officer Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn)—becomes erotically obsessed with Perfidia, sparing her life when he catches her planting a bomb in exchange for a sexually masochistic tryst. Thus, begins a warped love/hate triangle and rivalry which provides the backbone for the action.

The second hour pivots sharply after establishing Perfidia as a commanding revolutionary presence. The focus pulls to her daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), some sixteen years later, now living off the grid and avoiding all but the most basic technology out of fear of surveillance. ‘Pothead’ Pat, has withered into a paranoid and barely functioning stoner-alcoholic, leaving Willa to emerge as the steadier, more mentally resilient figure in their fractured household. The film undeniably suffers from the absence of Perfidia’s charisma and drive, yet it regains momentum when the now Colonel Lockjaw revives his obsessive pursuit, setting the stage for a tense reconfiguration of the story’s revolutionary stakes.

The acting in One Battle After Another (2025) crackles with intensity, led by standout turns from Taylor, Penn, and crafty scene-stealer, Benicio Del Toro. Further, Anderson’s casting team find some amazing supporting military personnel who deliver with uncanny authenticity. Sean Penn’s performance as a swaggering officer radiates brute masculinity—his very walk and gait dripping with testosterone and worthy of awards consideration on their own. Leonardo DiCaprio, meanwhile, folds another eccentric, messy, and deeply contradictory figure into his already remarkable CV, a creation that resonates with the layered complexity of his recent work in Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). He is actually far more hilarious here, as demonstrated in his desperate attempts to overcome the revolutionary helpline he calls for instructions.

Overall, One Battle After Another (2025) works best as a searing, darkly funny revolutionary black comedy, blending sexual, military, conspiracy, and social politics into a heady mix of action, crime, road movie, and romance tropes. The result is a wildly entertaining visual and musical feast, even if it stops short of delivering true socio-political depth. While the film’s closing stretch leans into deliberate plot ambiguities that complicate its resolution, Anderson ultimately serves up a combative cinematic blast—stylish, sharp, and exhilarating—if just shy of a bona fide classic.

Mark: 8.5 out of 11

Cinema, New Releases, Oscar Bingo, Reviews

PARASITE (2019) – CINEMA REVIEW

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PARASITE (2019) – CINEMA REVIEW

Directed by: Bong Joo-ho

Produced by: Kwak Sin-ae, moon Yang-kwon, Bong Yok-cho, Jang Young-hwan

Screenplay by: Bong Joon-ho & Han Jin-won

Cast: Song Kang-ho, Jang Hye-jin, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Jung Ji-so, Jung Hyeon-jun, Lee Jung-eun

Cinematography by: Hong Kyung-pyo

******* MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS ********

I actually saw this incredible work of cinema storytelling on Saturday just passed, so am writing this review AFTER the film rather incredibly won several Oscars at the 92nd Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday. I say “rather incredibly”, not because the film wasn’t a worthy winner of the Best Film award, but because high quality films not in the English language usually have to be satisfied with the Best International Film Award, as it is known now. Parasite (2019) in fact, deservedly won that award too. Anyway, irrespective of the awards it has earned, the film has also been universally praised. Not surprisingly, because it is not just a Korean arthouse film, but rather an ingenious genre classic. It blends dark comedy, horror, drama and thriller tropes to create a funny, suspenseful and consistently surprising experience.

The story premise itself is relatively simple and it begins not too differently from a Japanese film I watched recently called, Shoplifters (2018). A lower class family, in this case Korean, live in cramped conditions and struggle to survive on a daily basis. Their apartment is below level and the Kim’s including father, Ki-taek, mother Chung-sook, daughter Ki-jeong and son Kim Ki-woo are all out of work. While they struggle on they stick together as a family, battling drunks who piss against their window, steal local wi-fi and also carry out menial part-time jobs like making up pizza boxes. Fortunately, a friend of Ki-woo recommends him for a teaching position within a very wealthy household belonging to the Park family. Then the narrative really gathers pace as the Kim family surreptitiously begin to infest and inveigle their way into the Park’s privileged lives.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Kim family are the antagonists in the narrative, however, they are very empathetic characters. Their dubious actions lead the story into very dark and funny territory, as they manipulate Mr and Mrs Park, plus their young son and teenage daughter. While not condoning their actions one can identify with their class struggle because they are desperate to improve their situation and prosperity. The issue is though they get a bit greedy and the superb screenplay throws a massive twisting curve-ball at them as the Kim’s plans unravel and events go completely off the rails.

Filmmaker, Bong Joon-ho, like he did with the brilliant films, Snowpiercer (2013) and The Host (2006) is clearly using the social status of his characters to satirise and critique capitalist society. It’s literally an ‘Upstairs versus Downstairs’ narrative in terms of both locations and themes. Beautifully filmed, in a property that was actually built for the film, the cinematography makes clever use of glass and windows to mirror characters and reflect identity. Moreover, it has more than a voyeuristic air to it with characters hiding around doorways and stairwells, as well as following, spying and watching each other secretly. It’s a film which Hitchcock would have been proud to have directed too, with many suspenseful and gripping set-pieces throughout.

Ultimately, the first three-quarters of the Parasite (2019) are a cinematic masterpiece, so brilliantly plotted and planned out. When the Kim’s plans are then upended, the film gives way to an unhinged ending as events descend into bloody chaos. However, Bong Joon-ho is so in control of the material he tells us, via Ki-taek, that this careful planning is about to give way to something more messy. Furthermore, the final act while moving and tenderly rendered, I felt, was replete with somewhat poetic narrative holes. But, this is not a criticism as even in the final scenes Joon-ho is inventive while surprising the audience. Although, overall, the biggest shock would come when Parasite (2019) won the best film at the Oscars. I’m still reeling the Academy made such a risky choice!

Mark: 10 out of 11