2025   Warner Bros. Pictures

Rated:  R

Length:  2 hr  41min

Action ~ Crime ~ Drama ~ Thriller

Directed by:  Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti.

Some search for battle, others are born into it…

Pat Calhoun, aka “Ghetto Pat” (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) start out as young, angry far-left revolutionaries in a radical group called the French 75, pulling wild, dangerous stunts against the government and its detention centers. Their biggest enemy quickly becomes Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), a ruthless military officer who takes Perfidia’s earlier humiliation of him very personally and turns it into a long-term obsession. As Pat and Perfidia fall into a messy, on‑again, off‑again love story in the middle of all this chaos, their attacks escalate and the heat from law enforcement keeps rising around them. The early part of the movie plays like a mix of heist thriller, underground resistance story, and toxic romance, with everyone making bad choices for what they think is a good cause.

Everything changes when Perfidia gets pregnant and has a baby girl, Charlene, who later goes by Willa (Chase Infiniti). Pat genuinely wants to leave the bombs and guns behind,  but Perfidia can’t stop chasing the revolution and the adrenaline that comes with it. During a bank job gone wrong, she kills a security guard and ends up in custody, which gives Lockjaw a perfect chance to flip her and use her as an informant. The deal keeps her out of prison but sells out the French 75, and when Perfidia ultimately disappears into witness protection and then out of the country, Pat is forced to go into hiding with the baby Charlene under the alias Bob Ferguson.

Sixteen years later, Bob and Willa are hiding out in the sanctuary city of Baktan Cross, where he’s a burned‑out, paranoid stoner dad and she’s a restless teen who only knows a half‑true, heroic version of her mother’s past. Colonel Lockjaw has climbed the ladder into a powerful, right‑wing security figure obsessed with immigration and “cleaning up” the country, still nursing his old grudge and secrets. When a new crackdown sends troops into Baktan Cross under the cover of a drug and immigration operation, Willa gets pulled away by remaining resistance members, while Bob’s home is raided and he’s forced back into survival mode. The movie turns into a tense, cat‑and‑mouse chase as Bob tries to reconnect with old comrades and community leader Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro) just to stay ahead of Lockjaw’s tightening net.

Bob and Willa are separated and hunted across the state, with Lockjaw bringing in a conflicted bounty hunter named Avanti to track Willa down. Willa has to grow up fast, using what little her father taught her to outsmart both a far‑right militia and the government men on her trail, while Bob stumbles, gets knocked down, and keeps dragging himself back into the fight. Along the way, Avanti’s conscience, Sergio’s underground network, and the ghosts of Perfidia’s choices all collide, building toward a final climactic battle where Bob and Willa’s chance at a real relationship depends on whether they can survive one last, brutal battle with Lockjaw and the system he serves.

At almost three hours, you don’t notice the length as the story builds and you get caught up in Leonardo DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson, the shambling ex-revolutionary whose anxiety and physical awkwardness gradually peel back to reveal a tender, almost embarrassed love for his daughter. Sean Penn’s Colonel Steven “Lockjaw” is played as a coiled, tragicomic tyrant, all clenched jaw and barked orders, his sharpest, coldest work in years, skating right on the edge between menace and absurdity. Benicio del Toro as Sensei Sergio brings a relaxed charisma and protective warmth, grounding the chaos with wry humor and a gentle, caretaking masculinity.

One Battle After Another might just be the best movie of the year.

I loved it and I think you should watch it!

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