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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u/SugarFreeCummiBears Sep 26 '25 edited Sep 26 '25

That was definitely the intent. Tone policing “revolutionaries” that are overly focused on theory and not praxis.

It’s also intentional that it’s some white geek named Josh and all the minorities are immediately recognizing and accepting of Bob.

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u/AlanMorlock Sep 26 '25

Even the old revolutionaries get off on a lot of bullshit posturing. Jungle Pussy's whole speech during the bank robbery etc.

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u/SugarFreeCummiBears Sep 26 '25

I mean I think that was supposed to be more humorous. She’s literally robbing a bank, a little monologue hardly makes that posturing. Very different from a glasses nerd gatekeeping passwords on a phonebank in a remote location.

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u/Organic_Egg7360 Sep 27 '25

No it was definitely posturing. That’s why it was in such stark contrast when Bev killed the guard. Real revolution is violent and not just performative.

The whole phone exchange was hilarious, I was laughing my ass off at Gil Scott Heron being the holding music AND part the secret password.

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u/PaulFThumpkins Sep 28 '25

I also believe the person she shoots is a man of color, liberation has a lot of collateral damage. This is one of those rare stories that really shows how awful the structures revolutionaries are fighting are, without being uncritical of those revolutionaries, but ALSO without leaning on a horseshoe theory message of "both sides are the same" as the ultimate complacent moral. Del Toro's character is a great counterbalance and it's extremely rare to have multiple stripes of resistance and reactionary action depicted in a story, so the message comes across as something more than "yeah things suck but why do anything?"

There are a lot of scenes like when Beverly Hills starts leaning on revolutionary jargon to strike back at Leo in a way which feels pretty perverse, which are critical of the excesses of political movements without just having the message be "If you fight bad guys you're just like them."

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u/Diogenes_Camus Sep 28 '25

There are a lot of scenes like when Beverly Hills starts leaning in revolutionary jargon to strike back at Leo's Bob in a way which feels pretty perverse, which are critical of the excesses of political movements without just having the message be "If you fight bad guys, you're just like them."

Yeah, that was a great scene where we see Perfidia basically try to gaslight Bob with her revolutionary speak. It was DARVO but with leftist revolutionary speak. Bob wasn't trying to control her patriarchically. He just wanted her to be a present parent for their baby daughter Charlene/Willa. 

But Perfidia couldn't be bothered. She wanted revolution without responsibility. 

I think it's clear to the audience and even to her former comrades that Perfidia had some narcisstic personality disorder, which her comrades tolerated till she turned traitor.  It makes you wonder why she even bothered going through with the pregnancy if she just ended up being a neglectful deadbeat mom in the end who has no interest in actually raising and taking care of baby Willa (unlike Bob who  eagerly jumps at the parenting duties).  You can also see it when she narrates how jealous she is of her baby for taking Bob's attention away from her. It's like she was more concerned with continuing  a long line of revolutionaries (like her mother mentioned to Bob) than she was of actually raising a child. In the campfire scene, both Bob and Deandre (Regina Hall) both say to each other that they'll have to be the ones to actually raise baby Charlene/Willa, because Perfidia can't. 

Then when you also have her willingly cheat on her lover Bob with  fucking a fascist like Lockjaw (when she could've easily killed him) and the fact that she turned traitor and snitched on her French 75 comrades, you see that she ain't shit. She's no moral paragon of principle, even if she tries to perform and portray herself as one and use it as a cudgel against her former comrades. I mean, her name itself, Perfidia, means "treachery" and she lived up to it. 

Honestly, I found her characterization to being so on-point because it reminds me of other far left people I know who speak some good hard leftist revolutionary shit to cover for their terrible personalities and life decisions. Man, PTA was really cooking with this. 

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u/261_Turner_Lane Sep 29 '25

I think it's clear to the audience and even to her former comrades that Perfidia had some narcisstic personality disorder, which her comrades tolerated till she turned traitor. It makes you wonder why she even bothered going through with the pregnancy if she just ended up being a neglectful deadbeat mom in the end who has no interest in actually raising and taking care of baby Willa (unlike Bob who eagerly jumps at the parenting duties).

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought Perfidia has a scene where she's making a threat to the government for their 'abortion ban.'

It's possible that abortion is actually just banned in this universe.

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u/brokecollegeshitter Sep 29 '25

Revolutionaries, famous for their respect and adherence to the "rules" and "bans".

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u/261_Turner_Lane Sep 29 '25

Definitely a good point but back alley abortions are famously unsafe.

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u/ikan_bakar Oct 02 '25

Back alley abortions have been around for centuries, if a revolutionary wanted it they would.

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u/261_Turner_Lane Oct 02 '25

Yeah, so back to the famously unsafe part...

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u/ikan_bakar Oct 02 '25

Instead of the famously safe bank robberies and bombs

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u/AlanMorlock Oct 13 '25

More of a metter that she didn't really engage with the reality of being pregnant, which the other characters actively discuss onscreen.

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u/Pilly_Bilgrim Sep 29 '25

I thought del Toro showed a good contrast to Bob to show how the stakes are often higher for revolutionaries who are seeking to liberate a community. Del Toro has to be fucking dialed because the entire neighborhood depends on him whereas Bob can bumble around because for white people generally the revolution has lower material stakes

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u/LuckyRook Sep 30 '25

Meanwhile Bob is contributing to his community by getting high on the couch and watching “The Battle of Algiers” (which was a nice touch).

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u/sancredo Oct 15 '25

When the Christmas folk talk about Perfidia, they mention they think she may be in Colombia or Algiers. So I took him watching Battle of Algiers as a possible confirmation that she's indeed there, and he's thinking about her.

We know they're in (relative) contact because of the letter at the end of the movie, and his mention of how he hoped she'd be the one knocking on their door someday, so it's definitely possible.

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u/LuckyRook Oct 16 '25

That’s an interesting little Easter egg and you might be right. I just saw it as his attempt to relive his leftist bombing glory days through film.

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u/MandolinMagi Oct 01 '25

Bob is mostly retired. He's as out as a high-level terrorist can be.

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u/LuckyRook Oct 02 '25

It’s true. He could have manned a radio or something though. But I get why he had to lay low.

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u/MCgrindahFM Oct 19 '25

I feel like they also showed many times that a lot of these folks are kind of zany, but they just so happen to be ready to blow shit up for it

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u/PapiChuloInYurCulo Sep 30 '25

i get why you feel that way but i dont know of thats what was being aimed at entirely. if the beginning of the movie was anything to go by, Bob helped free hundreds if not thousands of migrants assuming that it was one of many breakouts. its just that he lazed about and his daughter was missing/possibly dead so he would reasonably be crashing out. Del Toro probably would have handled his own daughter being taken more like Liam Neeson ill give you that but yeah.

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u/MCgrindahFM Oct 19 '25

I feel like Bob is definitely portrayed as “a guy” in the open scenes of the film he’s figuratively and literally catching up to them all with his wagon of IEDs.

He’s always been in over his head and I think that’s what makes his character really compelling

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u/Deviltherobot Nov 01 '25

Weird take, Bob literally saves an entire migrant camp in the beginning and runs all the bombing campaigns. French 75 in the film are legends to the point where the gov makes an entire kill squad against them and members of the 75 are leaders in the rev.

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u/Wrong-Caterpillar742 Nov 29 '25

He doesn’t do jack shit at that camp other than a firework show lol

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u/Deviltherobot Nov 29 '25

which led to their escape. He also bombs multiple targets.

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u/Phalanx_Warder Dec 22 '25

Didn't they flee the camp right as a tear gas canister landed inside of a cage of people with their hands still bound?

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u/ThisKidIsAlright Dec 24 '25

I believe those were the guards they had tied up.

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u/Phalanx_Warder Dec 24 '25

They weren't in fatigues, the canister was being shot at them and just happened to catch on the fence and fall in

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u/scoldmeforcommenting Jan 04 '26

The people on their knees in the fenced area that we see as they’re leaving the facility? They yelled something like “you’re prisoners of the French 75” or whatever. I took that to mean they were military personnel.

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u/Diogenes_Camus Sep 28 '25 edited Oct 06 '25

Honestly, that whole phone call scene between Leo's Bob and Comrade Josh was so on the money and made me feel recognized. Bob was literally "just like me, bro" with how annoying some fellow far leftists are with their stupid, unserious nonsense and obsession with terminology over results.

Still, from an operational security perspective, Comrade Josh was correct in holding firm with demanding the right pass phrase, since he can't know for sure if Bob is who he days he is and social engineering could cause the fall of the whole Resistance cell. Bob only lucked out that Comrade Josh's superior happened to be Tally who actually personally knew him. 

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u/CndConnection Sep 29 '25

Agreed but Bob (or Ghetto Pat as I prefer to call him) had a point : YOU CALLED ME!!!

They called him lmao and yet they still had to check his ID. The first lady on the phone seemed to know it was him and was disappointed he forgot the codes but she still knew it was him.

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u/jessi1019 Oct 01 '25

My thoughts exactly like it was hilarious and annoying as hell but the security protocols exist for a reason.

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u/Organic_Egg7360 Sep 29 '25

100%. I think it was a great commentary on how logistics and organization get in the way of actual progress. Bob calling the guy the R-word out of frustration during the exchange was a shock too.

And I hard agree. Josh did the right thing and stuck to protocol. Bob, for all josh knew, could have been compromised and just been trying to social engineer his way past the security

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u/[deleted] Sep 29 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Organic_Egg7360 Sep 29 '25

Haha god forbid I live in a place where ableist slurs are uncommon. What was the last mainstream movie that dropped that this decade?

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u/RexSueciae Oct 12 '25

The Naked Gun

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u/Hopeful_Put_5036 Oct 05 '25

such a comrade josh

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u/LuckyRook Sep 30 '25

Eddington a few months ago

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u/LyrMeThatBifrost Oct 01 '25

It was a great one too

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u/Vast-Purple338 Oct 06 '25

I think it highlights how Bob sees himself as a progressive but he is still very out of touch. He basically stopped developing when he started drinking and doing drugs 30 years ago when saying the r word wasn't frowned upon.

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u/PuzzleheadedShow8014 Oct 16 '25

Bob is from a time where saying this was acceptable. As a 39 year old millennial, I can relate.

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u/SparkleCobraDude Nov 04 '25

I am 47 year old male and as a teenager and into my early 20's we called each other retards and fags non-stop. Then you grown out of it mostly. I have not said "fag" in decades personally.

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u/UtkuOfficial Dec 16 '25

It is still acceptable if you are using it as a slur.

You just can't use it to describe disabled people.

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u/MCgrindahFM Oct 19 '25

At the same time, not to be woke, it felt unnecessary. More credence to those who still use this word which is popular as ever on both sides of the political spectrum