negative review of One Battle...?

[Hübschräuber]

Someone wrote about the character played by Leonardo di Caprio (paraphrase): "It feels like the Big Lebowski stumbled into the Battle of Algiers".

A few impressions (spoilers).

What I liked:

The car chase near the ending.
The funny scene between Ferguson and his daughter at their home.
The matter-of-fact depiction of agents provocateurs throwing fire bombs to escalate a protest situation as SOP.

What I did not like:

Penn is too old for the role.
We don't need Penn's facial contortions to understand that Lockjaw (!) is experiencing cognitive dissonance.
Relatedly, the psychosexual angle seems half-cocked: I can see what Lockjaw gets out of it, not what Perfidia gets out of it. This may be due to a lack of imagination on my part. In any case, the relationship between Frenesi/Brock is different and makes more sense to me.
Crucially, the revolutionaries in VL build a community, fragile, threatened by CHAOS and COINTELPRO, but working, which makes Frenesi's betrayal much more poignant. None of that is to be found in the movie.
Resurrecting Lockjaw and killing him for good was completely unnecessary, even though I liked the idea of the Christmas Adventure Club.

What I didn't know what to make of:

Perfidia shooting a black man while her comrade strutted on the counter proclaiming female and black empowerment.


The Battle of Algiers, on the other hand, is one of the best movies ever made.

I can also recommend "I'm Still Here".




J Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> schrieb am Montag, 29. September 2025 um 18:43:

> Well I definitely disagree, but I can see both your and Dargis's point of view. For my part, I feel it can be defended, but great art is more than defensible, it cuts to the quick. I certainly wanted to both enjoy, laugh with and think about the work since those qualities are my experience with Anderson’s work. The portrayal of the revolutionaries at the start was off-putting and without sufficient context to create the sympathy needed to move them beyond caricature. Caricature, in general was the biggest problem for me. I could go into more detail but not in the mode of great vs. sucked.
>
> There are aspects even of Shakespeare that kiss up to imperialism in ways I dislike despite the more overarching power and artfulness of his visions of the human drama. I am not qualified or inclined to critcize Shakespeare as an artist , but I feel historically informed enough to question the imperial mindset that prevailed in Elizabethan England and that appears quite plainly in Shakespeare’s plays.
>
> to review what i said earlier The acting was strong if overly caricatured. The reference to the current fascists at the top is bold and properly creepy, and the questions about the possibility of revolution in this time need to be talked about. Overall though, I think the film misses the mark.
> I tend to think only a TV series could potentially take on Pynchon’s work with enough compllexity to be truly satisfying. The new work sounds like a plan for a Netflix or HBO series with all the appeal of period costumes and music and sci fi effects..
>
> > On Sep 29, 2025, at 10:43 AM, Mark Kohut mark.kohut at gmail.com wrote:
> >
> > I think it is a near-masterpiece if not a full one (with anyone's quibbles) ....Pynchon penetrates Anderson's movie
> > like a dye....everywhere.,,
> >
> > And his, Pynchon's, subtlety about Anderson's topic and themes, Pynchon's vision, makes it that masterpiece worked out beautfilly by a master
> > filmmaker...
> >
> > Besides this, the only review I can write and am, is a phenomenological one of Pynchon's visions from scene to scene...from beginning to end...
> >
> > On Mon, Sep 29, 2025 at 10:18 AM J Tracy <brook7 at sover.net mailto:brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> >
> > > I got a reference in either my inbox or my Pynchon list mailbox to a negative review of One Battle After Another and now that email is gone and I can’t remember the publication. Did anyone else see it, read it? I thought the review touched on everything that was unsettling to me about the movie but also left out certain aspects. I still have very mixed feelings about the movie, and am hoping other list members will post something. The acting was strong. The reference to the current fascists at the top is bold and properly creepy, and the questions about the possibility of revolution in such a time need to be talked about. Overall though, I think the film misses the mark.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>
>
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l