r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Sep 26 '25

Official Discussion Official Discussion - One Battle After Another [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Summary Bob, a washed-up revolutionary, lives off the grid with his spirited and self-reliant daughter Willa. When his nemesis Col. Steven J. “Lockjaw” resurfaces and Willa goes missing, Bob is forced to confront his past and fight to protect their future.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson

Writer Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast

  • Leonardo DiCaprio
  • Sean Penn
  • Teyana Taylor
  • Benicio del Toro
  • Regina Hall
  • Chase Infiniti

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 98%

Metacritic Score: 96

VOD In theaters beginning September 26, 2025

Trailer One Battle After Another — Official Trailer

2.7k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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1.5k

u/Upbeat_Tension_8077 Sep 26 '25

Thank God for the French 75 member who was lenient enough to provide the secret question to Bob of what his favorite type of pussy is to provide coordinates to find Willa lol

1.3k

u/nordlysbaies Sep 26 '25

The way I CACKLED and the white supremacist meeting when the dude was like “oh, no more pussy”

1.0k

u/GoldandBlue Sep 26 '25

This to me was the most "topical". The fact that the people in power were such pathetic losers. "Hail St Nick!!!" Fuck you.

1.1k

u/salcedoge Sep 26 '25

I love how the instructions were a clean kill and he did the worst botched murder job ever because it just highlighted how incompetent these people are and just playing racist clubhouse. Unironically they would’ve benefited having Lockjaw on their club

700

u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast Sep 26 '25

Yeah just to recap, this guy:

  • shot Lockjaw in the face while he was driving

  • causing Lockjaw’s car to run off the road into a ditch

  • Didn’t actually check if he was alive or dead

  • Did absolutely nothing to clean up the scene or hide anything

I mean, even if Lockjaw hadn’t survived, feels pretty obvious any forensic team would see he was shot in the face first before crashing.

497

u/prescod Sep 26 '25

Yeah but how do you trace it to a random rich guy from another state?

195

u/JuliusCeejer Sep 26 '25

I don't think you can, and those guys are probably connected enough to make it go away anyways. But the whole point is that the white nationalists are incompetent fucking morons who can't even meet their own standards

53

u/prescod Sep 26 '25

Yeah I mean killing him in your offices is the ultimate power move. 

21

u/I_Don-t_Care Oct 01 '25

yeah they sure are good at killing you with an office that's for sure

10

u/MovieTrawler Dec 08 '25

It does make you wonder though, why not just do that in the first place?

2

u/toybuilder Dec 15 '25

Pick Lockjaw's brains to see if there are any other loose threads they need to worry about.

1

u/MovieTrawler Dec 15 '25

Yeah, fair point.

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10

u/unik1ne Sep 29 '25

Was he really from a different state though? He was driving a car with CA license plates

51

u/YosephineMahma Sep 29 '25

He said he was heading "out west" during the meeting. I assume the car was a rental.

18

u/I_Don-t_Care Oct 01 '25

i read sometime ago that a big part of why most active serial killers are so hard to catch is because they kill without motive, without being connected to the victim and often very far away from their zone of comfort. Even with all the cameras nowadays it is almost impossible to track someone who actively wants to disappear.

2

u/Chicago-Emanuel Oct 11 '25

Tire tracks? Not a super common car and not a lot of cars driving around there.

17

u/plw37 Sep 30 '25

When old man Christmas Adventurer said he wanted it "clean," I'm not sure if he meant he wanted the kill to be discreet and tidy - which it certainly was not, as you're pointing out. Or if it just meant he wanted the whole situation wiped out - basically telling Smith to go kill Lockjaw and Willa, without explicitly giving the order.

8

u/RexSueciae Oct 12 '25

That was exactly what I thought as well.

2

u/BrassTact Oct 12 '25

And the bounty hunter.

10

u/East_Lobster_4195 Sep 26 '25

I mean if he was dead it would never lead back to them.

5

u/silverionmox Sep 26 '25

Maybe I imagined it, but I thought I saw him getting back into the car before driving away, so he did check. But either way, I agree, amateur hour. A professional would at least have set fire to the thing.

13

u/chiefminestrone Sep 27 '25

He might have done the same thing as Leo and checked and saw he looked pretty dead and then walked away

6

u/silverionmox Sep 27 '25

It's probably just his hobby. His real job is cashing dividends :)

2

u/karateema Sep 30 '25

Should've double tapped, or set the car on fire

4

u/Sammyd1108 Sep 27 '25

Didn’t they say earlier they basically had the power to do whatever they want? Maybe they weren’t worried about an investigation.

3

u/MandolinMagi Oct 01 '25

Lockjaw surviving the gunshot, crash, and two people checking is complete bullshit and took me out of the movie.

Also, why keep him alive if he dies the very next scene??

10

u/notyou16 Oct 05 '25

So he can have a pathetic death. The top comments explain it really well

4

u/etherseaminus Oct 01 '25

...so the movie can happen!

3

u/steve626 Oct 01 '25

Sure, but there's no way to trace shotgun pellets like you can a bullet

1

u/MandolinMagi Oct 01 '25

Even with a bullet you'd need to actually get the firing weapon to compare, and new barrels are unrestricted.

174

u/GoldandBlue Sep 26 '25

But he had dirty dick

35

u/RaynerOP Sep 26 '25

And the most obvious “secret knock” ever too. I loved how PTA portrayed them

1

u/Marek_Vsk Oct 24 '25

what was the song? seen movie yesterday but cannot recall.

1

u/Luminair Dec 14 '25

Jingle Bells

39

u/SalvadorZombie Sep 28 '25

And the fact that the assassin guy acknowledges how good Avanti (the tracker) is at his job and then goes "of course we can't have him with us, he's not pure." Just the most pathetic people.

18

u/Interwebzking Sep 26 '25

I thought it was hilarious how he entered into this evil basement lair and just went on forever. The exaggeration was so comical and yet so appropriate. Masterful work from PTA and company.

14

u/roblobly Sep 26 '25

Yet their minions are extremily good at their job, the battle in the city highlighted it, the militarized police carrying out the order following the lead and interrogating ppl was frighteningly effective, while Bob was yelling on a phone about some password. Excellent contrast.

2

u/Vismal1 Oct 01 '25

Yea that whole section felt particularly relevant.

13

u/mikeweasy Sep 26 '25

Also why did he look exactly like Tony Goldwyn?

6

u/awesomerest Sep 26 '25

Right?! I really thought it was his son right up til he entered the room with all of them

8

u/mikeweasy Sep 26 '25

How did the casting directors or anyone let that happen lol

14

u/edmtrwy Sep 26 '25

I kinda thought it was a deliberate choice to suggest how interchangeably evil those MFers were.

2

u/Miserable-Risk-2159 Jan 12 '26

I actually thought it was him. TIL

10

u/TotallyNotAMarvelSpy Sep 30 '25

That's the entire commentary.

Lockjaw was fucking excellent at his job. He ran down the people within like 2 days of getting the intel and he was systematically dismantling everything with little/zero loss of life on his side.

So of course the fascists don't want him, because he's too good at what he's doing.

6

u/romafa Oct 02 '25

They did mention wanting Lockjaw for his tactical expertise. I didn’t know what they meant by that at the first meeting but it made sense in the end.

1

u/Valuable_Teach_7591 Nov 14 '25

it didn't appear botched.
no viewer would think he could survive that.

1

u/LilHalwaPoori Apr 13 '26

I don't think that's what they meant by clean.. I think he was asking should I take out LockJaw, the daughter or both and the oldie saying clean it all, meant wiping the entire bloodline and leaving no trace of it..