One Battle After Another ** (2025, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti) – Classic Movie Review 13,740

Leonardo DiCaprio stars in the 2025 American action thriller film as One Battle After Another as a washed-up former revolutionary who springs back into action to save his daughter (Chase Infiniti).

Leonardo DiCaprio stars in the 2025 American action thriller film as One Battle After Another as washed-up former revolutionary Bob Ferguson, who lives with his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti). Sean Penn also stars as his crazy old nemesis, Colonel Steven J Lockjaw, who resurfaces after 16 years, forcing Bob to reunite with his group of ex-revolutionaries to try to rescue the abducted Willa. 

You could see it in IMAX, but the format’s not gonna change the film, is it? It is a mess, a weak start, an even weaker finish, a solid middle stretch, some good scenes, many poor bits, way overblown and overacted. Oh, and way too pretentious and too long,

There’s a taut genre thriller begging to come out of it. Anderson gives it a bit of style, but it’s the hey look at me kind of style when he should just he getting on down and dirty with his little story. It’s not much of a story, but it’s good enough, good enough anyway to have filled, say, 100 entertaining minutes. taut, tense, exciting, like movie thrillers are supposed to be? Where’s all that? It seems to suggest it’s about something. But is it? Not really.

There’s a problem with the first act set 16 years before the main action with the years suddenly flown by. Actually they could have started it there, and, if needed, just done the odd noir-style flashback to the past to fill us in. The film is oddly nasty and unpleasant, picking up on all the bad attitudes of the characters, and spreading them round, all over the audience, that is at least until the ghastly sentimental ending. The white supremacist group section of the film is a shade dodgy, especially as it’s really only being used as a plot device. On the other hand, if the white supremacists had been played by old-style character actors of the calibre of John Houseman. Ralph Richardson and Melvyn Douglas, these characters at least might have come to life.

Leonardo DiCaprio is perhaps over-eager to make an impression, though the role is rather showy, so it’s tricky. He looks and acts suitably wrecked and burnt out, sweaty, over-weight, and, yes, over-acting. But that’s nothing compared with Sean Penn, who has way too much to do, and overplays his hand wildly, turning his Colonel character into a semi-comedic caricature. Is the film meant to be a comedy action thriller? Not sure. Don’t think so. It’s way too up itself to be a comedy.

Nobody else really has much to do except be there. Benicio del Toro and Regina Hall are quite good value, but their characters are not properly fleshed out and disappear unsatisfactorily, their purpose in the story unclear. Benicio del Toro is fairly amusing in an entirely comedic performance. Regina Hall at least has a serious role to contend with. Teyana Taylor is way over the top as Willa’s mother. And Chase Infiniti as a 16-year-old schoolgirl with guns? Hmmm.

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson, Sean Penn as Colonel Steven J Lockjaw, Benicio del Toro as Sergio St Carlos, Regina Hall as Perfidia Beverly Hills, Teyana Taylor as Willa’s mother, Chase Infiniti as Willa Ferguson. 

Paul Thomas Anderson produces. directs and writes the screenplay, inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, which he had originally intended to adapt. The film had its world premiere in Los Angeles on 8 September 2025, and was released worldwide starting on 24 September 2025.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,740

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