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One Battle After Another – Movies Worth Skipping

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On this episode of Movies Worth Seeing, we take on One Battle After Another — and fair warning, this one did not survive the review.

We went in open-minded, ready to meet the film where it was… but what we got was a bloated, self-serious experience that mistakes noise for meaning and ambition for depth. Instead of tension, momentum, or emotional payoff, the film delivers repetition, confusion, and a whole lot of wheel-spinning.

In this episode, we break down:

  • Why the movie feels exhausting rather than gripping
  • How “important” themes are hinted at but never explored
  • The lack of payoff after all that buildup
  • Where the storytelling completely loses the audience
  • And why ambition alone doesn’t make a movie worth your time

This isn’t a hate-watch for the sake of it — it’s an honest conversation about why some films just don’t work, no matter how hard they try to look meaningful.

🎬 Movies Worth Seeing — and sometimes, just as importantly, movies worth skipping.

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Setting The Stage And First Impressions

SPEAKER_01

Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of Movies Worth Seeing. On today's episode, we're going to be talking about the very critically acclaimed, apparently, uh new Lead Nato DiCaprio film called One Battle After Another.

SPEAKER_00

It was a battle after another watching this movie. Watching scene after scene was a little bit more than a lot of time. You loved this movie.

SPEAKER_01

Don't fucking pretend now that you like that you hated it.

SPEAKER_00

Get out of here.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, you watched one movie review and now you're like No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00

I said, I'm not too sure how I feel about this movie. That's what I said. I didn't say I hate it, I didn't say I love it. Okay. Fuck you. He's trying to put me on the spot.

SPEAKER_01

Because last night after we watched it, you were like, nah, like it's not nah, it's good, man. It's got this gone and like I understand it. It's just complex. I thought you were gonna say Shut the fuck! I thought you were gonna start pulling the hole, like you just don't get it. You just don't get it, man. No. I thought you were. No, no. So you've seen the light.

SPEAKER_00

No, look, I s I still think there's a lot of good things about the film. The thing I hate about the movie is how politically infused it is. You know what sucks? And it's just not hiding it.

Politics Front And Center

SPEAKER_01

And I hate that. It's just so blatant about its whole political messaging and shit. And especially and it's let me play devil's advocate here, right? At first, you know, the first 15-20 minutes of it, I was like, oh my god, it's just extremely politically left. And we're meant to support and like these characters and have sympathy for them, even though they're all a bunch of dickheads, right? Including Leo DiCaprio's character. But then, like, we also get to see the other side, and it starts making fun of both sides, and I was like, okay, this is at least a little bit more interesting to be making like a South Park episode. They don't just attack one side, they attack both sides and show how both of them are hypocrites in their own ways, and that stuff's good. But then it still kept going back to like well, the main story is about these characters being revolutionists.

SPEAKER_00

Revolutionaries.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, revolutionaries. Right? In the same way that someone uh nowadays posts a bunch of bullshit on Facebook being like, I support um this group or whatever, and they call themselves a revolutionary, right? Yeah, no one likes those people, and now this movie's asking me to like a whole group of people like that. So um, yeah, that's an uphill battle.

SPEAKER_00

The whole movie tried to be a revolutionary thing.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Don't you think? The whole movie tried to be a revolutionary piece of art. I'm going to the movies to watch a film and be entertained. Not to get a political uh sway. Put in a position where I need to make up my mind about a political aspect of the world. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, in very basic, it's well the storyline says it with a um uh Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Bob Ferguson, or at least that's his alias, um, who is now stone paranoid has to deal with his past together with his daughter. But we started the movie with building their past, which is him and his lover, the mother of his daughter, um being revolutionaries by breaking out deportees, Mexicans, from ice camps. With about the the subtlety of They called it ice.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, like this.

SPEAKER_00

They call there's no subtlety there.

SPEAKER_01

No zero. No subtlety at all. I mean, if there's one thing this movie definitely doesn't have is subtlety. It is just in your face like this is what's happening. I'm gonna uh suggest something interesting, right? Oh no. Oh no. No, no. Okay, one thing. I think I'm gonna be one of the rare people that wishes that they had gone to see Tron Ares this past week. Because I could have seen Tron Aries instead of this piece of shit, and I actually think I would have enjoyed Tron Aries better. Because at least I would have been like, yeah, it's it's a you know, it's a cash grab, it's a sequel, it's got no soul, but at least I can just lose myself in it. Whereas this movie, in the first 10 minutes, I just kept looking at you like, oh my god, we are in for a horrible experience. Um so there's that part. And I'm surprised you're not giving me more shit about that.

SPEAKER_00

Like, oh you should have I told him to go watch Tron. We should have watched Tron Aries. We should have watched Tron Aries.

SPEAKER_01

You didn't want to watch it. You thought Tron was gonna be shit. I knew this was gonna be great.

SPEAKER_00

Tron Aries has terrible reviews, uh, which is I don't I don't care. I still want to watch it. Um, let's leading it and producing it, which is a terrible combination. So I understand you don't want to watch that film. I still want to watch it. Tron is my childhood. I love the game, I love I love playing little little games they're made out of it. It's it's just my childhood. So I I want to watch it for nostalgic reasons, not of critical acclaim. Yeah. So I understand why they why we didn't watch it. But we could have watched it, man. We could have watched it.

Comparing Sides And Satire

SPEAKER_01

I gotta stop listening to the reviews because you look at Rotten Tomatoes and the critics and user reviews for this are are glowing. Yeah. But then when I click on the user reviews, every second one is one star. So I don't understand how they're how they put their score together. It makes no sense to me. Yeah. I reckon it's bullshit because there's so many people I know that would not like this movie.

SPEAKER_00

Again, a lot of people will not like it because it is so alienating to so many people because of its political aspects of it. It's making it it it it's cr it creates exactly what the left wants to create in that propaganda machine in the in in news, right? Which is propaganda machine on every fucking set and ev and ever on every side, but this movie is really leaning towards that side of the political agenda. Uh, which is there is an Illuminati of white guys who want to have the white race and are against every other race and against every other sexuality. They're against gays, they're against blacks, they're against any other ethnicity. Uh-huh. And they're always suppressing them through all these underground actions.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. Employees and stuff.

SPEAKER_00

They're super rich and a super wealthy. So it's like you're you're there. It's it's the movie itself is against capitalism. It's about border control. It's it's against border control. It's against the so-called white supremacy. It's it's that a lot of people is like, fuck, I am I'm supposed to be gay, I'm supposed to be uh uh in a multi- in a in a um interracial relationship, and I'm supposed to be poor, otherwise I'm bad. And that's exactly what this movie is trying to tell you as well with the characters that they have created. It's like you're good, you're a revolutionary if you're in an in an um interracial relationship, you're good if you're poor, you're good if you're fighting against the government. And it's just why? Why do you have to make those statements? But it just it makes no sense. Like you can believe that, but you don't have to make those statements to attack your audience.

SPEAKER_01

It's so cringe now. It's like it's lame to do this, it's not cool to go after this. You know, like when did we watch Civil War? Uh like a year ago. And even then, like, people were fatigued, they were sick of these conversations, they were sick of every movie being about American politics. And it's continuing, and there's this growing trend of fatigue where people don't want to see this shit anymore, but for some reason, these entitled fucking Hollywood know-it-alls think like they know everything and they're gonna make the lower class of people get this message. It's like Paul Thomas Anderson. I don't give a fuck what you think of society while you reside in your multi-million dollar mansion or whatever, talking and hanging out with all your Hollywood celebrities that are all wokies and stuff like that. Like, I would you're all in your Hollywood bubble and you have no idea what's going on outside of that. It's like get over yourselves and stop making these pretentious fucking movies that go for so long and don't accomplish anything except just continue to perpetuate this divide amongst people that we've already got.

SPEAKER_00

Uh do something different. I I would add one more point to that, and then we'll go more into the content of the film. It's more, I don't know if I don't think people not would agree with all the stuff that's in the movie. I think it's more so they know their their viewer base. They're making the film for their audience, not to their belief. Well, they're not. Then they find then they find the actors and directors who align with it, so they can full put the full pen full uh passion in there, but it's not the Hollywood that believes it. That's not the production companies that believe it's a good idea. Well, there's okay.

SPEAKER_01

I know not the production companies. But I'm saying the the creative voices behind it, the writers, the directors, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well they're chosen people. They were chosen because they are passionate about certain things. They didn't make the story.

SPEAKER_01

I think Paul Thomas Anderson wrote this. Can we double check that? Let's fact check it. We could be wrong.

SPEAKER_00

Let's find out, let's find out. But screw Google AI. Doesn't work too well. Writers. Paul Thomas Edison and Thomas Pinchon. There we go. So he did write it.

SPEAKER_01

So he's at fault. He wrote and directed it. So it's his creative vision.

Plot Setup And “Revolutionaries”

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. But still not produced, kind of thing. It's not the exact producer. He doesn't it's he's not Warner Brothers. Yeah. Warner Brothers produced it. So it'll be Warner Brothers who'd be like, yeah, cool, okay, cool. We have a writer and a director who is passionate about this cause that aligns with the majority of our viewers. So yeah, let's pump the money in there. They don't care about the political aspects of it, they care about what the how much money they're gonna bring in. And I don't blame him for it, obviously. That's capitalism.

SPEAKER_01

But it's not winning. It's not winning in the box office. Uh no.

SPEAKER_00

But it's always a game. It's great. You never know. I love to hear that. But a good point is its time of release is um bad because it's released among a lot of heightened situations that are happening in America, such as the Charlie Kirk assassination. Uh, then also coming up in a movie that's very left-leaning. Not something that would particularly sit well with people.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's a very politically sensitive time as well. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

A very politically film in a politically sensitive time.

Regretting Tron And Review Scores

SPEAKER_01

I feel for more as us as Australians, that we're just kind of sick of it because we're just bombarded with this shit all the time. We actually don't like a lot of people like, I don't want to hear about the president. I don't give a shit. I'm just checking out because I don't want to hear it anymore. Yeah, exactly. So this is a funny thing, right? I said to you after I watched this, I was like, okay, so this movie goes for three and a half hours. Two and a half. Two and a half. Two hours. It felt like three and a half. There's a Simpsons episode that follows a very similar story to the story in this. I thought you were joking. There actually is. No, there is. Because so what happens is, of course, I would rather talk about The Simpsons than this fucking movie. That's a gimmick. Um, it is relevant though. So there's a classic Simpsons episode that explains where Homer's mother has disappeared. So Homer finds out his mother didn't die. She uh she had to like create a whole fake alias and run away from the government because she made a political attack on this university against Mr. Burns when back in the 60s, you know. Okay. Uh I think it was something to do with like medical research or something. Some kind of science where they were saying like they were against it, they were against Mr. Burns' plan. So they were revolutionaries that were creating a movement, going against the system, right? And in that 20-minute episode, we get a clear understanding of like why Homer's mother went down this path of the whole revolution at the time, getting politically involved. We understand what drove her to that, we understand the consequences of her actions and how she kind of realizes that you know this my choices in the past screwed up my relationship with my son. So we're starting to see some parallels here to the movie, right? And all in calling it. And also the fact that even though she did something 30 years ago, she's still wanted by the government. Yeah. And by Mr. Burns specifically, right? Yeah. But in that episode, you've got clear, likable characters. You like Homer's mum because she was standing up for a just cause, and you were, I'm pretty sure she's voiced by Glenn Close. I could be wrong. I'm pretty sure though. Um, which is great. It's very lovable. There's a very touching moment as well. Uh famously meaned a lot of Homer just sitting there, you know, looking at the stars as his mother says goodbye to him, realizing like she has to keep up that life of anonymity and that they can't be together. All of that gets achieved in 22 minutes. This movie in two and a half hours achieves nothing. Nothing. We don't like Leo DiCaprio's character because he's an unlikable dickhead. And then the only time we actually do like him is when he starts attacking the liberal side for their stupid, you know. There's this kind of moment where he has this phone con conversation with one of them, like the revolutionaries, and he's trying to say, like, alright, you know, like let's get to the plan. Like, I need to understand the plan, the meeting point, this and that. And they're like, Well, what's the code word? It's like, dude, we talked about the code word like 16 years ago. I don't remember it. And the scene stealer, like the absolute best scene of the movie, was him having this argument with this liberal guy on the phone. Because that's when you see the true version of his character, where it's like, he doesn't give a fuck about any side of the politics. You know, he just got sucked into it, believing in this bullshit message, and maybe there's a sign of life in him that realizes he just fucked up his whole life for nothing, and it wasn't worth all of this. Maybe that's where the problem is, is you get this sense of that, but then the movie just completely ignores it and carries on.

SPEAKER_00

But that's that's the thing. This is okay. In the first 15 minutes of the film, during the entire intro of their past, Mark and I were looking at each other, it's like, please don't go this direction. Please don't go this direction. Of like the revolutionaries are the heroes and the government and the capitalists are the evils. Please don't go this direction. And I had this glimmer of hope that the character, like as you should in a character, when a character starts to question their belief, starts to question their relationship, starts to question their actions, their past, and their future trajectories, then you get into a moral dilemma, and then you get into like a complex character arc. And I was really hoping for that. And this moment was a moment like that. It's about nearly towards the end of the film, and you finally start to look, it's like, oh my god, he's finally gonna start questioning if his actions were actually good. Was being revolutionary and breaking down army posts to to uh uh to put illegal immigrants back into the country. It maybe that wasn't a very good thing to do, maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Is he gonna question it? And then you think he might be questioning it, but he doesn't. No, he doesn't. It turns around again and uh and he sends his daughter off to do the exact same thing. And it's just like what the fuck's the point of the fucking film? He doesn't question his past, he doesn't question the things he's done. Well, what is the point of this film? The film is he tries to paranoidly protect his daughter from the government that's chasing him, and then his daughter gets kidnapped by this jealous maniac of a uh uh colonel, army colonel, right? That that that is also a white supremacist, racist, all the kind of stuff, and it's and and then he wins, and then that's it, and then the whole story starts anil.

Propaganda, Capitalism, And Caricatures

SPEAKER_01

Well, okay, so this is a big this is a big thing that I don't like. The ending of this just implies that we're gonna see the same shit repeat, right? Revolutionaries will never so so what did what was learnt, you know, like like you said, Leo DiCaprio's character doesn't end up questioning what he did, his past, the consequences of his actions. The daughter is gonna do the same shit that the mother did, even though the mother's horrible actions led to the breakdown of their family. Her selfishness of running out pretending she's a revolutionary when she's got a child crying at home, and we're meant to sympathize with her. So I don't get it. I just don't understand. It's like by the end of this film, it's like, oh yeah, uh political extremism should just continue, just keep going around and round. We should just keep destroying families like this. Um, I don't get what the lasting message is meant to be for us. If it if there is one, it's not a positive. Yeah, but if I was the daughter, right? Wouldn't you be thinking to yourself like I hate my mum because she sucked us into this world, and her actions are the reason that we have to live like this, where like I'm a 16-year-old girl, I'm not allowed to have a phone, I have to hide all the time. Police are chasing us because of shit that my mum did 16 years ago, even when she's referring to her mum as like a rat, you start to think they're gonna question stuff and be like, was this the right thing to do? You would say so. And like you said, then they're just like, Yeah, that was right, that was the right thing to do. Yeah, I should do more of that stupid shit. It it'd be like, you know, when someone breaks their leg uh skateboarding and they go, Wow, like everyone around them's like, that was a really fucking stupid idea to do that with the skateboard. And then they heal up and they're like, Yeah, I'm gonna try it again.

SPEAKER_00

I'm gonna try even harder.

SPEAKER_01

It's like and then yeah, and you don't know if they're succeeding or not, there's just the fact that they continue to say you're gonna do the exact same thing, like you're not gonna change anything about what you do, and then the people who love you most are gonna allow you to do the same thing again?

SPEAKER_00

That's the thing that baffles me as well. It's like Leo and Gurdj like was like, be safe. It's like I won't, okay.

SPEAKER_02

I'm a revolutionary.

SPEAKER_00

It doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense. Look, on the other side, let's play a devil's advocate once again. From the acting side of things, and this is what I hate, it was really good. Oh yeah, like Leo DiCaprio is one of his best performances in years. His last good performance from Leo that I've I personally found really good was The Wolf of Wall Street. Ever since I haven't liked it. Oh man, that was that was like more than 10 years ago now. No, and I haven't liked his work since. Me neither. Like before The Wolf of Wall Street, he's done a lot of a lot of great, great stuff. But Wolf of Wall Street was like, I don't know if I could think of a Leo film that came after that. I thought it was amazing. Uh okay, uh, Once Upon a Time. Oh yeah. He was good. Yeah, he was good. Oh, very much of an insane.

SPEAKER_01

There was one scene in Once Upon a Time that I loved. And it saved the whole movie for me because I hated that movie too. Um, when he loses it in the trailer preparing for the role, and he keeps forgetting his lines. Uh I don't remember even. Oh, it's such a good scene. But um, yeah, you're right. He was great in that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, otherwise I can't really think of the Leo films that stands out to me. Not in recent years.

SPEAKER_01

Maybe there is. I mean whether the Revenant. Isn't that the movie that won him the award though? Yeah. Oh god. It must have just been a pity award because they didn't give him some shit.

SPEAKER_00

It was an Oscar fishing film. Yeah. It was it wasn't good. I didn't it was literally from what I remember. You know, I have a very low standard for films. Like, as in, I will not stop watching a film. Like, I believe if you are investing a hundred million dollars in a film, I can spend an hour and a half watching it. Like, you must have vision in it. The best of the best in the world are working on this film to make something amazing out of it. So I at least I can do is watch it and see if I can find the good bits in it. Yeah, the reverend, I can count on a on a hand how many films I haven't finished watching. That's one of them. Wow. I've never finished watching it. I couldn't be bothered. It was so boring. There's no dialogue in a film almost. It's all visions. And that's fine. It could be all good, all fine and dandy, but it was Alright, let's get boring. Okay. Um so okay. So Leo was really good in this film. His acting phenomenal. He looked like he was having a lot of fun rolling, crawling, jumping around. He was completely unhinged and running around. So much fun watching him work. Uh Del Toro was amazing.

SPEAKER_01

Oh man, I loved the contrast between Benicio Del Toro being like this very calm, cool sensei, and DiCaprio just being all over the shop. Or yeah, completely unhinged. It was almost like a sitcom. It was watching them two interact.

Fatigue With U.S. Politics In Film

SPEAKER_00

It really was. It made it very comedic, and it was a lovely comedic relief. Which was deeply needed. So much needed. So desperately needed. And then you get Sean Penn. Blew it out of the park. Perfect betrayal. Uh betrayal. A perfect portrayal of a loser in power. Again, I hate the fact what he was representing. What that made him represent in the film. Because he was the white supremacist that represents the government and how inept they are. But from a character working perspective, he did a phenomenal job. He is unlikable but lovable because he's such a loser. Because you you can see him as a, ah, he's that kid in school that's a fucking nutwit. He's a fucking nut job. It's like super tense up, that job. I want to look cool, I want to look cool, I want to look cool, and it's like shaved on the side by like this weird little hair at the front here, and it's just. I can name a few people in my life that are like that. And it's just seeing that one person is in power, and you know that he's the kind of power that wants to compensate, and he wants the power for the sake of getting revenge on those who took the power away from him when he was a kid. It's that kind of character. That he is lovable when they're young, but dangerous when they get old. These are the kind of people that become cops because they were stripped away from everything during their high school years or primary school years where they got bullied and then go to a position of power just so they can feel good about themselves. And that's exactly the character he was. And he made a bit of a caricature, made a little bit further and a little bit in the extreme in the mannerisms and everything he did. And I think Sean Penn did that phenomenally. So good. Well done.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, he really nailed the look of like I'm holding a shit.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my god, he was walking like with a turtleneck the entire time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Spoken his head out. The baby was crowning pretty much every time you saw him walk. Look, I love yeah, I liked Sean Penn. I don't think I've ever seen Sean Penn in something where I was like, he wasn't good.

SPEAKER_00

He's I saw a couple of mannerisms from I'm Sam. Oh god. A couple of mannerisms in the very beginning in his the first scene or two that we saw him in, that he had a moment like did that, and I was like, oh, he did that exact same mannerism when he was doing I am Sam. It was really interesting, just a little throwback there. But he he didn't.

SPEAKER_02

And it's clever because Paul Thomas Anderson is trying to say that all the ice people are dumb.

Simpsons Parallel And Missed Arcs

SPEAKER_01

Which is something that like South Park is doing, but they can do it better and at least more creatively in 20 minutes. Yeah, like you said, I loved his character, hated what he represented, and knew that Sean Penn was just playing this character to make fun of like the right. There were certain things about, like, for example, him and Leo DiCaprio don't share any screen time except like one brief interaction in a shopping uh grocery store. Yeah. And it's like, man, I would love to see so much more of these two characters together. Like that would be an interesting dynamic. But instead the movie's like, no, we gotta focus on all this crap that you don't give a shit about. And it's like, for a two and a half hour movie, man, I would have loved to see Sean Penn and DiCaprio have some screen time together, especially since they're both such wildly ends of the spectrum, like two completely different ends of the political extremism side. Yeah. That would make for a great interaction. I mean, not it wouldn't be like De Niro and Pacino and Heat, but I mean you could have some fun with it instead of just uh uh we both like black chicks, huh? Cool.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um like black pussy. I love black pussy.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, what else do we say about this really?

SPEAKER_00

Um the character of the mother. What can I say besides resting bitch face? First of all, what was her name? Regina, is it no Regina Hall? It's uh Tayana Taylor. Okay. Her character's name is Perfidia.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, let's talk about Tayana Taylor's performance. Look, she is she's the first person you see on the screen, and as soon as I saw her, I was like, oh no. Uh where's Leo DiCaprio? I was like, who's this person? Like, no likability. Zero. Very, you know, just pretentious and over the top. And I mean, if she was gone for the whole holier than thou entitled Braddy kind of extreme leftist, then she nailed it. But her character does things that you don't like that you don't want to sympathize with. It just feels like the movie kept being like, oh, she's you're not meant to sympathize with her. Oh no, you are meant to sympathize with her. And then jumping between the two. But there was nothing likable about her. I didn't care about what she stood for. I certainly didn't care about her abandoning her family. Uh, I didn't care about her ratting out all of her people and then only to then leave and go back into anonymity. It's like, what are her redeeming qualities? By the end of the movie, we were like, uh, it doesn't really matter if she appears or not, if she's dead or not, it doesn't matter because we don't give a shit. What did you want to say about Tiana Taylor? Tiana Taylor. Yeah, so she's a singer songwriter, and it's just I felt like something was off, like she wasn't an actress.

SPEAKER_00

Well, one, she has this weird personality disorder towards after after she gives birth to their child, she becomes really jealous of the child, which is an occurrence in new fa in new mothers. They have they can go a little bit crazy and get jealous of the child and hate the child, and there's a syndrome called it's called something, I don't remember what it is. Uh and and she had that, and you can see that it was already a character flaw from earlier on, she was unhinged. It's just that she's such a key component in the story where she is kinda like Helen of Troy, like I was saying yesterday, right? She's kind of like Helen of Troy. Oh, this morning, where you have the two superpowers in a sense, fighting over the one love. But Helen of Troy is presented as almost like a goddess, and and she had that air about her, she's beautiful, she's kind, she is she's the perfect woman. She's the perfect love, she's the person human being. Whereas Tiana Taylor, as Profidia, is not, she's unhinged. Uh Sean Penn was loving her ass. Well, she had a good figure, but her face was not made very attractive, at least not.

SPEAKER_01

She seems like over a lot of plastic surgery, like very plastic. Uh it could still be there. Oh, probably is there. Um she just doesn't have a likable charisma.

SPEAKER_00

It's not likable. That's the thing, it's like Hannah of Troy is the most lovable human being in the world, and that's why all the superpowers want her. But when it comes to Porfidia or Diana Taylor, I don't see the reason why these two characters would love her, except for her physical attributes, which is below the neck. Savage. No, because her face is not fitting within the uh the the normal standard of beauty.

SPEAKER_01

But no, but not just that. I I mean like I just don't see what's likable.

SPEAKER_00

No, no, from the inside. That's what I'm saying. From the inside, there's nothing likable about her.

SPEAKER_01

Like the she doesn't seem like as soon as you see her on screen, you're like.

SPEAKER_00

But it that's what I mean. It's you see her face on the screen straight away. And her face has the expression, it's a resting bitch face, first of all. She looks angry every time she doesn't smile. And when she does smile, she looks unhinged. And that's why you're questioning us like, what do these two guys see in her?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, she also makes horrible decisions. She doesn't do anything redeeming.

SPEAKER_00

There's nothing lovable about her.

SPEAKER_01

She's very selfish. So you don't feel like she's this person who's taking political action for genuine reasons. You feel like there's some other unhinged reason for her doing this. Like, oh, it's an excuse to give me to shoot people or beat beat up people or or just And she cheats. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

She cheated on Leonardo Captain's character.

SPEAKER_01

It's just It's tough to make us un it's tough to help us understand why.

The Phone Call Scene And Abandoned Nuance

SPEAKER_00

You want Okay, so in Troy, and this is a good example, right? Using Troy, because you have the superpowers fighting over the one character that everybody f falls in love with. You have Brad Pitt as Achilles fighting for Eleanor of Troy. Right? And you want them to unite. Achilles is fighting for Agamemnon, who's gonna be with Helena, right? It's not Achilles himself who's gonna be with Helena. I haven't seen Troy in many years. I don't remember either, but I just remember Brad Pitt looking glorious with the long hair. Well, that looks amazing. Uh but that's Brad Pitt. But you want them to you want the woman and the man to get together. You want them to. And here I am just vouching for Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Bob Ferguson, to not get reunited with her. And even to go as far as I don't want Sean Penn to even reunite with her. She's that toxic that I wouldn't even wish that upon the enemy.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's a good point. Right. I don't want, even if they were able to like put their family together, you'd be like, I don't want you to be together because you don't connect with their humanity of the character because it just doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_00

The actions are not justified.

SPEAKER_01

I just thought of an interesting parallel. When we were talking about the relationship between Bob Ferguson and Prof what the hell's her name? Profid Profidia. Profidia. Okay, right. It reminded me of seven psychopaths. Remember the the the rabbit man and his wife, how they would go around killing racists? Yeah. Right? Yeah, things like that. So remember how they they were they were going around murdering racists, and you sympathized with them, right? Because they were killing horrible people. But then the the wife did something that made the husband question whether they were doing the right thing. She went too far. That was like what you were talking about. The characters questioning, you know, whether this is the right thing, questioning their previous actions. Yes. And that made for this great story, this great moment in Seven Psychopaths, where the rabbit man is telling Colin Farrell his story, and he's like, Oh, I had to kind of back away from this. It was too much. That could have worked really well with this if Leo DiCaprio, Bob Ferguson's character, had done something similar, where he said, you know what, this is too far. We can't keep doing this. And I thought they were gonna do that when she shot someone in the bank. I thought that was the moment where everyone was gonna go, like, okay, maybe we should pull back on what we're doing. Maybe we're not doing the right thing. Maybe we should re-evaluate this. Which would have made me feel more sympathy towards them too.

SPEAKER_00

But if they do that, they wouldn't fit the narrative. If you think about it, because they made the revolutionaries good people. Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, they're the Robin Hoods, right? Who would never kill. And when they finally killed someone, that's where shit went down. So basically it's what they're saying, the revolutionaries are better than killing people. We're not killers, we don't kill people, we only steal from the rich and give to the poor. Then why did they have her kill someone? Well, because she had no option because the guard was about to pull a gun, right? He was reaching for his gun, so she had to shoot him. She had no option but to shoot him, because he was gonna shoot them. It kind of was presented like she was begging him don't stop moving, stop moving, stop coming closer. She was begging him not to move. She didn't want to shoot him, but she ended up killing him because she put herself in that position.

SPEAKER_01

You know what? Maybe that's on her performance because in that moment I didn't feel that reluctancy of like, oh please don't keep moving. It just felt like she was enjoying it.

SPEAKER_00

No, no, she there was a reluctance. It wasn't done. You missed half the fucking film, shut up.

SPEAKER_01

And I still didn't miss anything important.

SPEAKER_00

Well, that that was an important bit.

SPEAKER_01

I got my taxes done on my phone while fucking watching this movie, and it was still more interesting than actually watching the damn movie.

Character Arcs That Go Nowhere

SPEAKER_00

Hey, and I'm not denying that, but there was reluctance in her face, which makes me hate that political aspect of it even more because they're robbing a fucking bank. Why is that okay, but killing people is not? Why of course killing people is bad, but robbing a fucking bank is also bad. Where are you like drawing the line where this is becoming like a very anti-capitalistic movie against everything that America stands for? That's the thing I hate about this fucking messaging of this film. It's because saying that the revolutionists they didn't harm anyone up until that moment, and then shit went downhill. Saying that what they do is they're threading a very moral but thin line that don't fall off it, and as soon as you fall off it, shit goes down because then they're represented in the wrong way. And that's exactly what happened, and then shit went down up until that moment. For some reason, some fucking how nobody knew their faces, even though they're like going to all the public places and going where else and showing cameras everywhere. Yeah, showing their faces everywhere. That doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_01

Which is another thing that I'm like, oh, that holier than now like thing of uh it's it's not it's about genuinely making a stand revolution. It's like, no, it's not, it's about your fucking social media, it's about your little your little posts of being like, look at me, I'm a main character. Look at how cool I am. And that was a clear that was at least one thing that they got accurate is the extreme leftist uh hypocrisy of being like we are so morally superior, and now I'm gonna shoot someone.

SPEAKER_00

And let's make something one thing super fucking clear. Because with us saying this can take it out of context completely, and and the point needs to be very clear. Not saying that one side is good and one side is bad. Point is that it is scrutinizing one side and bringing one side to the light as if that is the way to go, and there is no nuance in it, and that is the problem. It's you don't have a character from either side questioning what they're doing it to be the right thing to do. You should, in an ideal movie, you should have the both powers actually switching sides because you go from identifying with one person to identifying either with the other, or you go with the switch with them because you're starting to see the light, right? And that that's something that's missing in this movie, is because you have one side is from the beginning the the light, it's the justified thing to do, and you go through the entire journey and it stays the right thing to do. Whereas the other side is scrutinized from beginning to end, and there is no question about it, and that's the thing I don't like about it. It's not because it's a leftist movie. If you make the same thing about the right move, the right side, I would say the same thing. It is that there is no moral question, and there's one strong messaging behind it, and do not dare to question that.

SPEAKER_01

You would really like American History X because I feel like this stuff that we're talking about is done so well in that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I know the story, I I know I know a lot of about uh his uh American History X.

SPEAKER_01

I haven't watched the whole movie yet, but like there's a balanced kind of all good movies do, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

All good movies around the world fucking do. It's balanced. Every godforsaken good movie does that. You need to be a change of psychological belief system. If there isn't, then it's not a human being. And it's also so it's so interesting.

SPEAKER_01

Like, it's interesting to watch. But it doesn't fit in the political narrative. Yeah, that's the problem. That's the um all right. What are we giving this final ratings? I know what I'm giving it out of Europe, I think are gonna be a bit more positive than me though.

Performances: DiCaprio, Del Toro, Penn

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. I am really haphazard about what I'm giving it because on the one hand, I thought the acting was done phenomenally, and I want to give credit for the way it was acted. Um, the freedom, the expressions, everything, the lighting, the cinematography of it was amazing. A lot of this film is amazing. It's just the motive behind it, it really put me off. Um, a lot of time wasted, a lot of unnecessary footage, a lot of unnecessary and extended footage was needed. The whole chasing scene, the car, the whole roller coaster up on the hill, really interesting cinematography behind it. Just took too long for me. It's like you're in a climax where your heart should be beating, it's like who's gonna shoot who, and it's like three parties, four parties, even trying to shoot each other and kill each other, and who's gonna get who and who's gonna get aware first. And then you have this entire chasing scene through a roller coaster in the desert, goes up and down and up and down. And I see the point behind it. It's like sometimes someone is in view, and sometimes someone is not. It just takes the entire rhythm of the movie of the climactic scenes out. It takes the whole timing out. So, one, it is phenomenally acted, two, shitty terrible political aspects behind it that that forces you to think in a certain narrative. I'm giving it a two and a half out of five.

SPEAKER_01

Cool. I'm gonna give it. Oh man, you've almost swayed me in some ways. You're welcome. That's what I know. Nah, nah, you know what? Try harder next time. Nah, I'm giving it one. I'm giving it one out of five because it was a complete waste of my time, great potential, like a great premise, completely wasted. Paul Thomas Anderson, I know he can direct great movies. I love Punch Drunk Love. Oh, did he do Punch Drunk Love? Yeah, which is so good. So to go from that, and then you watch this, you're like, oh man, what the hell happened? As you said, so much unnecessarily long scenes for no reason that achieved nothing. I came out of the theater not remembering anything, not really caring about anything, and not really questioning anything except why did I watch this movie instead of Tron Ares. Um so yeah, fuck this movie, fuck the over-the-top praise that it's getting, uh the overrated critic reviews, all of that stuff is just reminding me of the things I hate about modern movies, and this was like the perfect example of like why I don't like modern movies, because they're just people that have their heads so far up their own ass of like this is amazing, and no one's saying to them, yeah, but what's the point? Like, what are we doing this all for? No one's stepping back and going, like, why are we really doing this movie? What are we trying to achieve here? Whereas when we watched Falling Down, it was so clear, everything was iconic, memorable. Characters we loved, even the people that were horrible people, even the bad guy in Falling Down. Michael Douglas still has likable aspects to him.

SPEAKER_00

And a revolutionary moment where he changes his mind. Evolutionary, not revolutionary. Evolutionary moment where he changes his mind and starts to question his own motives, starts to question his own actions. He comes to at the end, he comes to realize, am I the bad guy? Yeah. Yeah, you were the bad guy. It's like, oh. Well, there's no turning back now, so I may as well fucking finish the job. And then he still does something that you're like, fuck, I can actually fuck, it's actually a good thing he did that. He sacrifices his own life so his daughter can have a good life.

SPEAKER_01

And left us with questions of like, oh wow, like that thing was really great. And I I love the way they did this. Oh my god, this is making me think about, you know, healthy masculinity, purpose in life, all these questions, toxic relationships, all this stuff, but in a good way. Whereas when we're talking about it with this movie, which I one battle after another, is that what it's called? Yeah. Um, with this, I'm just like, I don't want to talk about this. I didn't even want to talk about it for the podcast. I was I was so like, oh my god, what am I gonna talk about? I'd rather talk about anything else. Not a good sign. So, one star, if you really are intrigued about watching this, wait for streaming services. The movie's not doing well at the box office, what a shock. Um, so yeah, those are my final thoughts. There's so much more better films in this vein, in this genre that you could watch. That don't go for almost three hours. So, yeah, it's a shame, but yeah, those are my final thoughts on it. So that's our final thoughts on one shitty battle after another. If you enjoyed this review, please like, share, and subscribe. And comment below what are your thoughts on one battle after another? Did you like it? Did you hate it? Are we missing the mark? Is there some big realization that we need to have here that we're missing? Or just comment the usual bullshit of you just don't get it, man. Which I've been dealing with pretty much since we've I've made this podcast. There's always one comment that's like, you just don't get it, man.

SPEAKER_00

You just don't get it, man. What about the inequality? What don't I get?

SPEAKER_01

Comment below. Let me know what I don't get, okay? Because to me, it was just a boring movie. Anyway, see you guys.