One Battle After Another

The best high-wire director of his generation wakes up the sleeping giant of American cinema by turning this radical blast of action, fun and fervor into the movie of the year.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another — the most entertaining, exhilarating movie you’ll see all year — is an incision into a raw nerve. A thrilling, tense portrait of modern life, it’s Anderson’s most urgently relevant work yet.

Paul Thomas Anderson has directed a swaggering, funny and timely action epic, where momentum never lets up and supporting actors Sean Penn and Teyana Taylor steal the show.

Anderson has executed an unbelievably rare feat: a big-budget studio action film that maintains his specific tone and style, with a film that feels essential to our troubled modern times.

One Battle After Another is an ensemble powerhouse, with Anderson taking a stab at what could be his most politically charged feature. DiCaprio is wonderful, but then again there's not a dull note in the entire cast.

With this visionary director — one of Hollywood’s best — it’s one winner after another.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s dark comedy One Battle After Another turns overreaching into an art form.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Paul Thomas Anderson delivers a quirky/wacky movie, likely to illustrate the woke era following Covid-19 in the USA. At first, the story seems engaging, then it becomes only entertaining. Visually, everything is most of the time ordinary, with no real good choices in the soundtrack, and the actors' performances are quite average. Overall decent, but in my view, it's not really a masterpiece worthy of praise...

Americans are the only ones who are hyped for this movie. They think it is a good reflection to their society and current events. But it is all so random and hard to really enjoy. Its kind of a not ending trailer for a GTA-ish game.

Brilliantly shot, well-acted mess of a movie. There is a car chase scene that is an all-timer, yet the story is just off. ANTIFA are the heroes, and Anderson wants you to root for actual terrorists. This guy has technical brilliance, but his story is empty, polarizing, and vapid. I think this would have been considered edgy about 10 years ago, but it’s heavy-handed woke message doesn’t land. Not even shooting on real film could save it for me. Early on, when an actress is screaming nonsense gun-in-hand, walking in high heels across a bank counter, it feels like a parody. But it’s not - it’s dead serious. And seriously bad. If John Oliver tried to make a politically-charged thriller, it would look like this.

Did not not enjoy this movie - Sean Penns wooden and cartoonish military man performance, soundtrack of permanent disonance, overblown and unbelievable car chase scene - ending was crass and not required.