One battle after another delivers on the repetitive boringness its title promises. The movie is a collection of events, without any real teeth or message, starring lots of famous people. It’s directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA, or PTSD for short) who probably thought he had something to say about revolutions, or ICE or women and children, or you know, all them race relations stuff.
Leonardo de Carprio is a revolutionary in a struggle we know nothing about. His ideology, motivation and goals are never stated. ICE, and another unnamed government agency, are depicted as “bad”. I guess they didn’t want to risk alienating either the libs or maga so just milqtoasted the message to a Haliburton-approved bland bipartisan gruel. There’s something maybe about a black liberation movement too? The film earns its post-credits “No actual political views were expressed in the making of this movie” certification from the capitalism inspectors.
Maybe it’s supposed to be a character drama — but we barely know the characters. Leo’s guy “Bob” is basically “former rebel, loves his kid, smokes weed,” and that’s the entire character sheet. He acts well but it feels detached, like he’s wandering through someone else’s movie. He doesn’t go on a hero’s journey, barely influences the plot, and mostly just exists because they already cut him a paycheque and some necromantic bean-counter somewhere said they needed a white male lead to stand in front of a camera. Viva la revolution!
The film seems to really wants to comment on race relations, but just peddles stereotypes and some odd early sex scenes. It even breaks Laurence’s rule of not knowing the director’s secret fetish in did-we-really-need-to-see-this bits between Sean Penn and Teyana Taylor, scenes that left me wondering if the soundtrack weren’t just PTA breathing heavily through a sock. The movie features a sassy black woman, a clueless middle-aged white guy, a cool Latino with a big family and strong community and a monastery of militant black nuns who grow weed, all classic cinema tropes at this point. Every white character (other than Leo) is evil and every non-white character (other than Teyana) is good. Now, I once read a history book, and noticed that a lot of evil people have been white, so this isn’t crazy. Yet smugly driving up to me with a car full of clichés and then running over my cat as you drive off is an oddly annoying experience. OBAA’s not sharp enough to be satire and not brave enough to be serious.
The major critique is that it lacks bite. A serious examination of the realities of a revolution would have been great, and I initially thought the movie was going there. But, like a kid anticipating Disneyworld only for Dad pull over and announce “we’re here!” at a non-Dinosaur museum, the film swerves clear of examining revolution in favour of a personal story about Hollywood box-checked procedurally generated NPC’s. God dammit you PTSD bastard, actually say something about revolution, or politics, or race relations. It’s 3 fucking hours long, I say more about those issues during any random 3-hour conversation I have. AUGH
At *this* point in post-post-late-stage capitalism, when the U.S. empire has openly embraced ritual vampirism, half the country is homeless, and every schoolkid is on anxiety meds because the world is ending, you have to actually risk something to seem authentic. Say America needs a hard-left turn. Criticize specific lobbyists. Show how propaganda sabotages collective action. If you’re going after ICE, offer nuance on immigration instead of acting like “ICE = bad” is edgy. I just don’t understand how such a simplistic movie with such cliché characters can possibly be considered smart! *sips latte*
Or develop your protagonist by showing his internal world, his struggle with his thoughts on politics, revolution vs reform, love of his daughter vs political calling, or even his addiction and where it comes from. Or if you just want to entertain, give us outlandish over-the-top action, satisfying explosions, dinosaurs with guns, one-liners, Arnold Schwarzenegger, paleontologists or information about dinosaurs. OBAA doesn’t really have anything more to say than Transformers 2: Revenge of the Transformers, but sure has a lot more pretence. It reaches for the stars and brings us to Dennys. “Don’t look up” is a similar movie but is better in every way. It’s much funnier and has a far more biting, focused political critique. Am I insane for asking for more? Am I insane for being worried that this movie is well-reviewed because it dressed in a smart looking jacket and glasses and everybody mistook it for a professor and assumed it was profound!?
There’s a later scene with cars chasing, in theory quickly, but visually slowly due to how it’s shot, over a series of hills. We were meant to feel tense BECAUSE THE MUSIC WAS TENSE. The main baddie was already dead, I don’t know if the guy chasing the daughter knows who she is, or if he’s even chasing her. She doesn’t know who he is, he’s just a random guy. Great climax set-up you’ve got here. So after she kills him, which is essentially murder of someone uninvolved in her kidnapping, Leo finally arrives *when she is already safe*, contributing nothing, again. Nobody cares about the random corpse. Nothing matters. It’s just images in sequence, demanding emotion without providing anything in return. I don’t know what to feel, I don’t know what I should care about. None of these characters are interesting and this for-some-reason 3 hours long movie isn’t about anything. At least what it lacks in wit, it makes up for in length.
I give one Prattle after Another 3/10.