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One Battle After Another (2025)
Written & Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
This movie reminds me of one of Quentin Tarantino's high-octane films, so fast-paced that it keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. It could also be like a production of escapades in a banana republic, in which American 'do-gooders' are trying to restore normality.
Irony of ironies, this film is not about any other country but is narrated as if it were set in the most powerful economy in the world, the United States of America. It could very well be a parody of what is happening now. At a time when Trump's administration is going full swing to apprehend and expatriate undocumented aliens back to their countries of origin, there must be among the many left-leaning Americans who are sympathetic to immigrants' plight.
There have been many times in the recent past, as far back as the Swinging Sixties, when Americans have felt it was their moral duty to stand against the powers that be over their atrocities and injustices. The 70s were notorious for young people's protests and an equally brutal backlash against the Vietnam War and civil rights.
Then there was the Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality, particularly against the black community, and now it is ICE's high-handed deportation of foreigners.
One must remember that during the Biden administration, the USA had an open-door policy at the southern border. The bulk of immigration is via the UN and private American financiers. Although never proven, it is alleged that leftist groups like George Soros' 'Open Society' had a pivotal role in this exercise.
After draining the country's resources to keep the migrants, the government changed. Trump's right-wing conservative stance was brutal. The US machinery was used to go all four barrels to expel undocumented migrants and send them off en masse back home. If Biden's policy was on humanitarian grounds, this apprehension was naturally deemed inhumane.
This was the basis of this 2025 movie. Amid the chaos of catching and deporting illegal immigrants, Jim Parker (De Caprio), an anti-establishment figure, went into hiding. He lives with his teenage daughter. Jim's partner-in-crime and life left Jim to care for their daughter when she was only 3 months old. Motherhood was not for her.
After so many years living below the radar, Jim and his daughter are identified. The US military goes after them. A certain Army officer, who had raped Jim's partner, takes special interest in their case. Suspecting that he may be the father of Jim's child, he wants to kill her to erase his association with a black woman. The officer, soon to be appointed to a white supremacist group, has the life aim of preventing contamination of white lineage.
Hence begins a cat-and-mouse race. Jim, running to avoid capture, tries to catch up with his daughter, who has been abducted in the middle of a supremacist group hunting the Army officer for fathering an interracial child.
The whole of the movie is a parody of what is actually happening in the USA. The same nation ushers people into the country to do their dirty work, but then goes out to catch them and pack them off when its economy hits rock bottom. Amid all that, the nation is deeply racist. The nation's history is tethered with tales of slavery, divisiveness and racial discrimination.
On the one hand, there are the leftists and their anarchic plans for the country, while on the other hand, there are freaks who preach racial purity and eugenics. Indeed, God save America!
Farouk Gulsara (asokansham@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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