Movie Review - One Battle After Another

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Genre: Thriller/ Crime/ Action/ Drama
Runtime: 161 minutes
Year: 2025
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Chase Infinity, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor
 
Description: When their evil enemy resurfaces after 16 years, a group of ex-revoltionaries reunite to rescue the daughter of one of their own.
 
Review: There are few director-screenwriters whose every film is a hit. Think of Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan. Paul Thomas Anderson certainly belongs on that list. With the political satire “One Battle After Another”, he adds another gem to his oeuvre. The film is so compelling and layered that you hardly notice it last 160 minutes.

Left-wing revolutionary Bob Ferguson, also know as Ghetto Pat, joins the radical action group French 75 – named after the explosive cocktail – led by the wild, untamable Perfidia. He falls for her, and together they begin a passionate relationship. During a liberation action to free migrants from a detention camp, Perfidia humiliates Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw, who gets a sexual kick out of it. From that moment on, he tries to dominate her and believes he succeeds. Later, Bob and Perfidia have a daughter, Willa, but Perfidia refuses to take on the role of mother.

Sixteen years later, single father Bob takes care of teenage Willa. All this time, he was a dormant revolutionary who filled his days with alcohol, drugs and watching old classic films about revolutions such as Battle of Algiers. When Lockjaw reappears, the threat flares up again. He wants to join a club of white supremacists who worship Santa Claus. In order not to jeopardize his membership, Lockjaw must do everything he can to erase all evidence of sexual contact with a black woman. He organizes a raid and leads a militia to the place where Bob and Willa are hiding.

Paul Thomas Anderson is an intelligent filmmaker who refuses to be put into one genre, always trying something new and striving for originality and complexity. In that respect, “One Battle After Another” is no exception to his earlier masterpieces. Anderson was inspired by the book “Vineland”, the absurdist thriller by Thomas Pynchon.

Anderson’s film is set in the present and depicts recognizable situations from the current US, but visually and thematically refers to the 1970s. The whole thing feels both retro and modern at the same time: as if time has stood still and nothing has changed.

The film is so rich that you spend hours analyzing it. On one level, it’s a story about a child caught between two superegos: one radically left-wing, the other radically right-wing and extremely racist. On another lever, it is the quest of a disillusioned father who has lost his way but wants to regain his last shred of humanity – his daughter. And on yet another level, the films works as a metaphor for a weary left that must contend with stupid extreme right-wingers and racism.

Anderson provides the necessary perspective. As a satire, “One Battle After Another” is also rich in humor. Leonardo DiCaprio is the epitome of wit as Anderson’s version of the Dude (from “The Big Lebowski”) – bathrobe included. And Sean Penn deserves a medal for his portrayal of the most hideous and pathetic racist in years.

It is doubtful whether the whole of the US will embrace it. Despite the highly original car chase, this is clearly not a work that will appeal to fundamentalist, far-right viewers who have no sympathy for migrants and those who think differently. This will probably be my favorite film of the year.

Rating: 5/ 5

10s Movie Review - The Hate U Give

Director: George Tillman Jr.
Genre: Drama/ Drama
Runtime: 133 minutes
Year: 2018
Starring: Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, Anthony Mackie, Common, Issa Rae, Algee Smith, Sabrina Carpenter, K.J. Apa, Dominique Fishback, Megan Lawless, Lamar Johnson, TJ Wright

Description: Starr (Amandla Stenberg) witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Now, facing pressure from all sides of the community, Starr must find her voice and stand up for what’s right.

I WATCHED THIS MOVIE FOR MY 2024 MOVIE CHALLENGE
WEEK 31: A FILM WITH A COMING-OF-AGE STORY
 
Review: The Hate U Give forms the first half of the acronym “Thug Life, which was tattooed on rapper Tupac Shakur’s belly in the 1990s. In full, the acronym stands for “The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody. In short, all the woes in society that underprivileged youths face at an early age will later pay off in only more hate. With the late rapper’s thoughts as the main motif, it should be clear that author Angie Thomas’ wildly successful debut novel is a lote more deeply politically engaged than the average teen novel. The film adaptation, let by and outstanging Amandla Stenberg, also manages to do that.

In the opening scene we see Starr and her family sitting at the table. Father Maverick gives them the talk about serious matter. How should they act when they come into contact with the police as black Americans? Overly protective perhaps, but the long list of incidents in which unarmed African-American men were killed by a police bullet in recent years alone shows that Maverick’s concern are by no means unfounded.

When Starr is 16, she has to use these lessons in practice, when she and her childhood friend Khalil are being pulled over by a cop. When Khalil is killed by this cop, Starr has to try and deal with this traumatic and it presents her with a diabolical dilemma. Will she fight for justice by acting as a key witness? Or is she better off staying far away from all the media hysteria and the inevitable hate reactions that come with it? And how will it affect her own reputation at her largely white school when she is suddenly associated in the news with a boy portrayed in the media as a dangerous drug dealer?

Amandla Stenberg, who plays Starr, is absolutely amazing. The young actress shows she has a lot of emotion and she can easily carry this story. I loved the supporting roles by Regina Hall and Russell Hornsby as well. The creators could have done a bit more with Issa Rae and Anthony Mackie’s characters though.

The film has a strong message, is emotional, powerful. I absolutely loved this movie, a different kind of coming-of-age story, but one that I will remember for a very long time.

Rating: 4,5/ 5

00s Movie Review - Law Abiding Citizen

Director: F. Gary Gray
Genre: Drama/ Thriller
Runtime: 109 minutes
Year: 2009
Starring: Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx, Leslie Bibb, Bruce McGill, Viola Davis, Regina Hall

Description: A frustrated man (Gerard Butler) decides to take justice into his own hands after a plea bargain sets one of his family’s killers free.

Review: “Law Abiding Citizen” starts with a bang. When the happily married engineer Clyde Shelton opens the door, he is knocked down and forced to watch his family being slaughtered. No long intros, no build-up, we get right into it.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the prosecution messes up the case and the judge won’t accept Shelton’s testimony because he lost consciousness during the robbery. Prosecutor Nick Rice is also more interested in attractive deals than in justice, as a result of which only one of the two robbers is sentenced to death, and the other (the initiator of it all) gets off with a short sentence and will eventually be a free man again.
We skip to ten years later. Nick Rice now has a family of his own and is one of those present at the execution of the convicted offender. That execution goes terribly wrong. Instead of it being painless, the execution is as painful as possible. The next day, the other perpetrator is killed in the most horrible way possible and the video of this torture fest is delivered to Nick’s home address. The suspicion immediately falls on Clyde Shelton, and he is arrested. It seems like the end of the story, but it’s just the beginning. Clyde wants revenge, not just on the two bad guys who slaughtered his family, but also on the system.
“Law Abiding Citizen” is a highly original variation on the vigilante theme, which made a comeback in the 00s. And many with success ("Taken", "The Brave One", Death Sentence"). Citizens taking matter into their own hands, because the were abandoned by the court.
Originally Gerard Butler was supposed to play Nick Rice, but at the last moment he chose the role of avenging family man Clyde Shelton. Butler is really good and this film stands out because of on ingenious screenplay. It constantly misdirects the audience. But don’t think too much about the plot twists afterwards, because you will find a bunch of plot holes. Jamie Foxx is also very strong as Nick Rice.
“Law Abiding Citizen” is a fast, exciting film with a lot of violence but not hard to stomach. It’s not subtle or credible, but somehow that doesn’t matter. It’s a good, solid, entertaining thriller.

Rating: 3,5 / 5