One Battle After Another – Movie Review

TL;DR – This is a chaotic, uncomfortable, taut, and downright weird film, but it is also completely captivating from the opening frame to the closing credits.  

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

A road meandering up and down over some hills.

Setting the Scene

2025 has been an odd year for noted Indie directors trying to tackle the political situation in America at the moment, because most of them have floundered in the attempt. They have been trying to capture the moment, but their stories get lost in comedic attempts or a poor understanding of the very topics they want to analyse. However, today we are looking at a film that just might have cracked the code with one secret weapon that gets lost in cinema at times, intentionality.   

So, to set the scene, we open as a number of self-labelled revolutionaries, including Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), who are staking out an immigration detention facility near the border in California. In the middle of the night, they strike, liberating the camp and beginning their revolution against corporate and oppressive elements of America. The French 75 group places bombs in courthouses, robs banks, and causes general calamity. However, you don’t make that much noise without attracting foes, and little do they know that Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn) is hunting them all down, or maybe just Perfidia.   

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Deadland – Movie Review

TL;DR –  It is a film with a lot of intrigue, but I wish it had a bit more going on under the hood.  

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was sent a screener of this film.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

A man standing on the river's shore.

Deadland Review

I do love when films get weird, when they play with your perceptions of what is real or not, though I should maybe stop playing them before bed. Today, we are looking at a film that does just that with the people in the movie, but does it have the same effect on the audience?

So, to set the scene, we find ourselves on the USA/Mexico border with US Customs and Border Patrol, where they find a suspicious van trying to cross. Agents Angel Waters (Roberto Urbina) and Ray Hitchcock (McCaul Lombardi) find just a kid behind the wheel and a whole lot of drugs in the back. It was just a routine day for The Patrol, but when Angel is alone and finds the body of The Stranger (Luis Chávez) floating dead in the river, he is the most surprised when the man wakes up out of his body bag on the drive home. But when Angel’s father, Ignacio Coronado (Manuel Uriza), returns and the dead man, now alive, turns up dead again, things start falling apart, and this is when Internal Affairs starts to sniff around.  

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Doi Boy – Movie Review

TL;DR –  A difficult but also fascinating look at the pressures of Thai life through those who sit at the bottom of the hierarchy.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Doi Boy Review

One of my goals this year was to hit one hundred films reviewed and expand the cinematic landscape I have explored. Well, we ticked off the one hundred films goal earlier this week, but the goal of increasing my cinema still marches on. Today, we look at our first film from Thailand that drops us into a world on the cusp of rapid change.

So to set the scene, Sorn (Awat Ratanapintha) is an ethnic Shan man who was a former Monk who was pressganged into the military. They had to escape from Myanmar because of the violence. In Thailand, all he wants is the best for himself and his girlfriend Bee (Panisara Rikulsurakan), but there are few opportunities for someone without the right documentation. One industry that did pay well was adult entertainment; that is how he and Korn (Noomsang) ended up working for Madame M (Teerawat Mulvilai) in Chiang Mai. A world of money but also a world of danger.

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