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Review by Wip Mulloy ’28
★★★★★

One Battle After Another is a wild, powerful film about the chaos of revolution and how it shapes the people caught in it. It’s not a traditional war movie as there’s no clearly defined army, no official sides. Instead, it drops us into a messy, unnamed revolution that feels both personal and universal. We never fully know what anyone is fighting for, which somehow makes it even more real.

The movie’s strength lies in showing all the different people swept up in the fight. Bob Ferguson is a weed-addicted, washed-up dad who falls 40 feet off a building towards the middle of the film. He spends the majority of the movie not fighting for any cause but just trying to get his daughter back. The film ends with him scrolling on his iPhone, listening to Tom Petty. It’s a strange, quiet moment that makes you wonder: does everyone need to be a revolutionary, or is it okay to just sit back and live?

The mother is the opposite. She’s so devoted to the cause that she abandons her family and kills for it. Even when she’s off-screen, she drives the story. She’s a ghost of commitment and destruction. When she’s pregnant and firing a machine gun, it’s the film’s clearest image of how people are born into violence.

Sensei Sergio never really gets introduced, and we’re left unsure how he knows Bob. That mystery shows how some people join revolutions on impulse, while others like Bob need a deeper reason. Then there’s Lockjaw, a cartoonish but perfect military villain, representing the brutal face of organized violence. But he works for the simultaneously terrifying and hilarious secret society, The Christmas Adventurers Club. They believe they control all the strings but are ultimately unsuccessful in preventing the revolution.

This film isn’t just about politics now; it’s about the endless cycle of human conflict. Revolutions repeat. History moves forward through struggle. And the movie leaves it up to us to decide whether that’s destiny or choice.

The filmmaking is top tier. The camera work is creative, and the car chases are electric, especially the scene with the rolling hills that rise and fall like waves.

Even though the movie is mostly bleak, it ends on a surprisingly hopeful note. By the time the credits roll, you’re left thinking about two big questions:
Is destroying yourself and your family worth it to change the world?
And maybe the bigger one – are we really just predators and prey, searching for one battle after another?