‘What Could Have Been’ is a continuing look into the reels of film history, analysing movies that could have been something special, but due to problems with script, production, budget, or any other type of issue, did not reach its full potential.
***Warning: this review will feature some major spoilers***
Already getting buzz as one of the top films of this past year and perhaps being in line for the Academy Award Best Picture next month, One Battle After Another (2025), written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (and inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Vineyard”), features big stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Benicio del Toro, and has everything going for it. . . meaning that it should wow and amaze. Yet, from a screenplay perspective, a lot is missing. . . despite being nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay as well.
Fusing action, mystery, thrills, and some satirical black comedy, One Battle After Another follows a far-left revolutionary group called the French 75, and, more specifically, two of its members – hot and bothered couple Bob (DiCaprio) and Perfidia (Teyana Taylor). With a goal of breaking detained immigrants free from government facilities as well as funding their group by other nefarious means, they not only break into detention centres, but also rob banks to do so.
Of course, this catches the eye of the aptly named Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (a tense Penn), who is desperate to be inducted into an elite secretive group of conservatives/white supremacists called the Christmas Adventurers Club. Becoming infatuated by Perfidia’s sexually perverse gusto over what they actually did during the opening scene, this leads to a years long confrontation between him and members of the French 75. . . including a massive time jump of sixteen years at one point. Though, as mentioned above, this feature has a lot going for it, there are some unbelievable elements and plot holes that will make it difficult for some viewers to fully join the wild ride. The first thing that seems unconvincing is that the gang pulling all these stunts are flashing their faces left, right and centre, making it highly unlikely that they would have made it far past their original mission, let alone several (despite this happening before the time jump). This is not the era of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or Bonnie and Clyde, making these circa 2009 actions more than a bit implausible.
Flash forward to the climactic sequence, where things take place on a quiet country road in the California desert. Throw together a new character in a hit man named Tim Smith (John Hoogenakker) from the Christmas Adventurers Club, Lockjaw (who is on a ‘cleaning’ mission), a distraught Bob, as well as his desperate to survive daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti), who are all in separate unknown cars (that have been stolen, hot-wired, or are simply their own), then juggle them apart in different locations along the countryside in a wild goose chase, and we are somehow meant to believe that they all know each other and are following the other in the same direction at the same time (especially considering how Smith doesn’t know anyone outside of Lockjaw). It simply feels so unlikely that it takes you right out of the moment they are trying to create. . . especially considering what happens to Lockjaw in the end – why would they make their actions so visible and hard to cover up with a shotgun wielding assassin and high speed pursuits? Defenses have been made for this – claiming that on these deserted country roads there aren’t many cars; but that doesn’t fix the incredulity of people figuring out the situation with little to no information, Willa’s clever driving skills as a sixteen year old, the silliness of the aforementioned Tim Smith plan, and more.
Though there are things to like about One Battle After Another, it’s hard to get past these imperfect plot holes and logical fallacies, especially after seeing such stellar scripts as The Handmaiden, Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Parasite, among others over the past decade or so. Though loose, over the top writing works in films like James Bond or kitschy popcorn flicks, it just doesn’t feel right in this highly touted Best Picture nominee, despite some satirical aspects. So, see if you side with the majority of critics on this one, or if one plot hole after another is as noticeable to you as it is to me.