Mini Film Review – One Battle After Another

I have just seen One Battle After Another; and it was pretty interesting! Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Chase Infiniti, and inpired by the book Vineland by Thomas Pynchon; One Battle After Another is a black comedy action thriller, which follows the story of an ex-revolutionary, who is forced to return to his old life, when a corrupt military officer starts pursuing his daughter! One Battle After Another starts off by setting up important moments in the past, in order to tell the story of what happens 16 years later. The film is frequently intense, as the authorities gain ground on the fugitives, with scenes panning out in simillar fashion to Birdman. The film highlights the struggles of immogrant minorities in the United States, as well as highlighting the awful desires of white supremasists (and given what most news story coverage has been lately regarding the USA, it makes the film painfully realistic). As the intensity builds in those intense scenes, there’s also time for a dash of light humour, just to help uplift it a little. The ending though is pretty tedious. The title is One Battle After Another, and in fairness it highlights how this is a never-ending-story, as one thing leads to another, constantly raising the stakes. But it just drags on, and you do start wonder, as to when this film is going to end. Thankfully the film is still interesting enough to not be downright borring (unlike Dune, which just carried on, and on…and on, like it was trying to beat Lord of the Rings‘s record for overly long film/franchise, which LOTR currently holds thanks to the very unneccesary extended editions)! It is very much a never-ending story on purpose, but you still want it to just get to the point. But whilst the ending is rather tedious, the middle, with it’s near perfect intensity, occassional comedy, unique twists, creative points of awkwardness, and terrific acting (especially from Chase Infiniti), creates a really interesting experience!

Also, there’s a piece in the soundtrack, which constantly sounds like it wants to become the opening theme to A Clockwork Orange, only then to change it’s mind.