"The revolution is sexy, until it's not. Paul Thomas Anderson's tenth feature, One Battle After Another, finds the director working in what might be his most thematically of-the-moment mode yet, an electric thriller set against the backdrop of political resistance and the resurgence of unbridled white supremacy. At its most basic, it's standard action movie stuff: Leonardo DiCaprio plays Bob Ferguson, an ex-revolutionary searching for his missing daughter."
"As the brazen Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), a leader of the militant activist group French 75 and Bob's partner in crime and romance, aptly notes, "Every revolution begins fighting demons," but then they "just end up fighting themselves." The setting is vaguely contemporary other than the background placement of a pop song or two from the 2010s, I didn't spy any markers to suggest a specific year."
An electric thriller centers on Bob Ferguson, an ex-revolutionary turned paranoid stoner who searches for his missing daughter years after a militant group's violent fallout. The militant group French 75 once smuggled migrants, set fires, and robbed banks before a deadly demonstration led to arrests, deaths, and exile. Perfidia Beverly Hills was Bob's partner in both activism and romance and disappeared after the bank robbery. Sixteen years later Bob lives quietly with daughter Willa while monitoring her closely. The narrative probes unfulfilled promises of protest, the fracturing of movements, and the return of a racist, corrupt adversary who precipitated the group's collapse.
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