One Battle After Another (2025)

Plot of One Battle After Another: Pat Calhoun is a bomb maker for the revolutionary group French 75 who create problems for the US administration by robbing banks and rescuing potential deportees from detention facilities. They are pursued by a military group led by Major Steven Lockjaw who against the odds develops a relationship with Pat’s partner Perfidia Beverly Hills, who after being captured by Lockjaw spills the beans to him and disappears into Mexico, leaving Pat with their daughter Willa. The group disperse and Pat is given an alias, Bob Ferguson and a complex set of passwords. He and his daughter disappear into obscurity in the town Baktan Cross. Willa becomes a competent and feisty young woman, Bob becomes a drug and alcohol addict. When Lockjar is offered a job in a white supremacist organisation, the Christmas Adventurers Club, he must search out Willa, who might be his daughter to disguise the fact that he has had a relationship with a coloured woman; when he captures Willa, somehow Bob has to get her back.

Content: No actual sex but some activities relating to it by fully clothed participants, Lockjaw and Perfidia. Bob and his friend Sergio drink a lot of beer, sometimes while driving, and also pot is smoked. The French 75 carry out raids on detention facilities and banks, and at one point have to run away causing a car chase. Willa goes to college in Baktan Cross and is taught karate by Sergio. The Christmas Adventurers Club meet in a well appointed basement. Willa is helped by a former French 75 member and ends up in a convent, having firearms training. Bob escapes from Lockjaw with Sergio but is tazed and captured. Later he is rescued again by Sergio. Willa is captured by Lockjaw’s man Aventi Q. There is an incredible car chase over switchback roads.

A View: This film is now 136 on the IMDb hall of fame. Quite an accolade, and it was loved by the critics. However, like other Paul Thomas Anderson films it appears to be unlikely to have made any money, mainly due to its very high production cost. I must say that the time passed effortlessly. I did not look at my watch once, and being a bit of a retired petrolhead I enjoyed with very appropriate engine noises applied to each of the vehicles involved. Modern cinema acoustics really do something for today’s films. So in term of entertainment and value for money, big ticks for both. Get along to your local multiplex and give it a go.

Fun Fact: The director developed the script over 20 years.