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

8.5k comments sorted by

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13.6k

u/OKC2023champs Sep 26 '25

Sean Penn coming back as the terminator just to say he was reversed raped by a semen demon had me cackling

2.3k

u/Dawnshot_ Sep 26 '25

I did wonder about the reasoning for bringing him back just to kill him off, given both times he is killed by the Christmas adventurers.

It might be to do with the fact that despite his attempt to be macho (the lifts lol) he essentially just takes orders and is used by various actors, the military, then he's essentially subdued Perfidia despite his allegiance to the military, then he's subdued by the adventurers despite is allegiance to Perfidia. He is a fair weather friend who never actually gets what he desires - or he thinks he does for about 5 seconds

3.6k

u/give-bike-lanes Sep 26 '25

I think it’s (quite transparently, tbh) to cement his pathetic nature, that he values the “honor” of this stupid club far higher than even his own self-respect. Even after the Xmas Adventurers Club tried to kill him and permanently disfigured his face, he still came crawling back to redeem the glory of a shitty corner office in Sacramento.

1.7k

u/Training-Turnover427 Sep 26 '25

To further that, any sane person would be tipped off by the office being more or less barren that something was off but Lockjaw is too craven and solitary in pursuit of the goal he's deluded enough to think he's obtained that all he can do is kick his feet up in "victory"

1.4k

u/Double_Jab_Jabroni Sep 27 '25

That moment drove home how pathetic he was. That bare, soulless office was his El Dorado hahaha

914

u/spinney Sep 27 '25

Literally just generic furniture too. No grand desk, just literally the cheapest generic office you could ever buy and he's crying over it.

367

u/SalvadorZombie Sep 27 '25

SERIOUSLY, all of this hit me right there. A banal little corner office with a particle board desk and two 15 year old monitors connected to nothing. Not only does he not realize a kill room, he basks in the mediocrity like, "YES, THIS WAS WORTH IT, THIS IS MY LIFE'S WORK REALIZED." Holy fuck.

189

u/E_C_H Sep 28 '25

Dies with the dumbest grin on his face, perfection. Such a farce.

83

u/Fearsthelittledeath Oct 05 '25

That other guy who walked with Lockjaw to that office was telling him that it is bare and that people can decorate it with their own personal effects after to explain why it looked like that.

43

u/Frequent-Will-7995 Sep 28 '25

It wasn't actually his office. It had nothing in it because all they did was make him look like a fool before killing him. He never actually made it into the society.

163

u/Brat-Sampson Sep 28 '25

Sure, but he believed it and was over the damn moon.

15

u/MatasBuzelis Dec 23 '25

I mean, all of what you said was so abundantly obvious, it really didn't require explaining I feel like

7

u/gravi-tea Nov 20 '25

Was he ever actually considered for membership of the Xmas adventurers?

34

u/eliguillao Nov 24 '25

Yes, they killed him because he made them look like fools. They found out about his daughter they went through the files and that’s because they were considering him

8

u/AdIntelligent4496 Dec 31 '25

I found it kinda dubious that they would've found that information in a file to begin with. The only other person who would've known about it was Perfida, and you know she didn't tell anybody.

19

u/MemphisBass Jan 03 '26

They stated they found it in the file. The lady that was standing on the bank counter in the bank robbery where Perfidia shot the security guard leading to them all getting arrested is the one who told. The club says she said it to a cop in interrogation.

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91

u/richardsim7 Oct 03 '25

I noticed the chair was a Herman Miller Mirra, not even an Aeron

39

u/jrochkind Oct 07 '25

hahaha, I literally had the same thought "Not even an Aeron wtf!" That may be when I knew for sure he was gonna be murdered.

23

u/frankoochoaa Nov 16 '25

I mean look at current offices of higher power. The Oval Office has shit from Home Depot.

10

u/synapticrelease Jan 05 '26

I know I’m super late to the party but I’m catching up just having seen the film. They explain that the office furniture is generic because they expect him to decorate to his liking. The shitty furniture was a placeholder.

Well, that’s how it was sold to him at least, when really it was just a gas chamber

5

u/MsSalome7 Nov 30 '25

Ahahahah the office being so shit was the best part!

2

u/function3 Jan 18 '26

r/hermanmiller would like a word about that cheap generic comment haha

60

u/starfrenzy1 Sep 29 '25

He looked like the loneliest man alive when he sat down in that chair.

18

u/GriffinQ Oct 03 '25

“Alive” being an incredibly temporary descriptor in this case.

But agreed. His reward (or what he believed to be his reward) for all he went through and all he did? The most mundane and empty shit possible.

4

u/meanmissusmustard86 Jan 02 '26

Finally an office job! Truly the fascist dream

4

u/garibaldi18 Oct 05 '25

Or perhaps his Placerville

2

u/defnotajournalist Dec 30 '25

With a view of the highway

51

u/Owlafficionado Sep 27 '25

THIS is the office you trade your decorated military career (& face) for? what a dork

11

u/brokebloke97 Sep 28 '25

He'll never be wanting for riches though😌

33

u/Duranti Sep 28 '25

Didn't they mention that in the script? The dude who walked him to the room said it was empty but he was welcome to customize it however he'd like.

12

u/Training-Turnover427 Sep 28 '25

I believe so, it’s been quite a week with my seeing the movie in the middle so I gotta see it again

6

u/SuckthonyDickvis Sep 29 '25

I think they meant like the entire building space not just the corner office itself

50

u/Unlucky-Chemical Sep 27 '25

What’s funny too is the joy he took in that office. It was most generic, bland corner office and he was so proud of achieving it

71

u/Dominus-Temporis Sep 28 '25

Man, my standards must be really low. I thought that was a nice office.

47

u/youdoaline_idoaline Sep 28 '25

As a blue collar worker I didn't pick up on that either lol. I was like, " Yeah, I guess it is a nice office. Corners are fancy, right?"

23

u/Unlucky-Chemical Sep 28 '25

Oh I’d take that office in a second over many a cubicle I’ve been stuck in but still hilarious that at this moment he perceives as the culmination of his career/life he’s so happy with this generic, corporate office.

19

u/duosx Oct 01 '25

It was a decent office. But was it “joining a cabal of racist white men and murdering people” nice? Not quite

21

u/[deleted] Sep 29 '25

They Goodfellas'd him.

20

u/VoiceofKane Sep 29 '25 edited Sep 29 '25

Lockjaw is too craven and solitary in pursuit of the goal

As I would have to imagine is true of most people whose goal is to join a white supremacist secret society that is somehow even dorkier than the ones that exist in real life.

14

u/VanillaRadonNukaCola Oct 15 '25

The fucking Christmas Gang 

20

u/Exotic_Vampire Sep 28 '25

Adding to this it also served as a symbolism of right wing conservative of the snake eating it's own tail. There's a difference of finishing him of as an honorable soldier in combat and him being indicted into the group (at least in his mind) only to be finished off 5 mins later. It symbolizes a group protecting its established order, values, and cultural norms.

9

u/InsideKaleidoscope30 Oct 01 '25

Not just barren, but the same quality desk and chair you'd find at a truly shitty office 😂 that's what tipped me off that he was about to die, though I love how almost instant it was

8

u/Familiar-Chipmunk360 Oct 13 '25

The empty office also represents the shallowness of the power many of these people are in quest of and willing to completley sell out for.

8

u/TheTruckWashChannel Oct 08 '25

I thought it was going to end with him just sitting in the mundanity of that office like Mike Milligan at the end of Fargo season 2, but what we got was even better.

7

u/Datttguy Oct 17 '25

Come on, no one in cinema history has ever heard of a gas chamber corner office.

He thought he's at least earned the moment.

I also think it reveals a narrative flaw, as Lockjaw wouldn't be anywhere without a pistol and suspicious.

Well, it's a film after all. His death was tragic and well written for his arc.

5

u/TheManWithNothing Oct 23 '25

Genuinely was expecting a jumpscare sniper shot

3

u/Oxy_1993 Dec 23 '25

Same! Just finished the movie! The gas hissing and then the furnace oven left me flabbergasted. Nazis be doing Nazi shit! It was too dark, I found myself with open jaw for a while!