One Battle After Another is a full-contact experience. It’s raw, graphic, frequently funny in the bleakest possible way, and powered by performances that refuse to blink first. This is not a movie that asks politely for your attention. It grabs you by the collar and drags you through the mud, then cracks a joke while you’re down there.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s direction feels intentionally jagged. The violence is confrontational rather than flashy, the humor pitched like a nervous laugh. PTA has always been interested in power and obsession, but here he strips away elegance in favor of something meaner and more volatile. This is his best work since There Will Be Blood.
At the center is Bob Ferguson, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, a man running on fumes and bad instincts. DiCaprio leans into exhaustion, letting frustration and dark comedy bleed into every interaction. You can feel his experience from Wolf of Wall Street and The Revenant bleeding into this performance.
Then there’s Benicio del Toro, delivering a marvelously restrained turn. His performance is quiet, almost withdrawn, but it carries immense confidence. Every look feels considered, every pause loaded…even while drinking and driving.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Sean Penn, who plays Col. Lockjaw as a power-hungry monster with no moral ceiling. Penn is ferocious here. His character’s willingness to do whatever it takes is genuinely unsettling, and Penn makes that ambition feel both pathetic and terrifying. His swagger, awkward walk, and stereotypical military haircut are exactly what you’d expect from a character named Lockjaw.
If the film occasionally flirts with excess, it earns it through conviction. One Battle After Another is fantastic because it’s fearless. It’s brutal, sharply observed, and darkly funny, anchored by performances that hit with precision and force. This is Anderson letting chaos breathe, and it just might earn him a boatload of awards.
RHFC Rating: 9.5/10 🍿
