'One Battle After Another': Action film from beginning to end

PAUL Thomas Anderson directs Leonardo DiCaprio in this darkly humorous action thriller about an aging explosives expert called back to action.

Penning a script loosely based on the novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon (known for Inherent Vice), it’s by far the most expensive film of Anderson’s career with a budget of $175 million.

Nevertheless it’s a movie that bears many of the hallmarks typical of this director, from it sense of scale, its intense characterisations to its richly ironic style of storytelling. Its commentary of timely themes may prove provocative for some but this epic odyssey is thoroughly entertaining and could well prove to be a new American classic.

In an extended flashback opening, a group of unchained anarchists known as the French 75 are plotting a revolution.

Inspired by communist guerrilla ideals, among them is DiCaprio’s character Bob Ferguson, a bomb-maker.

He becomes head over heels for Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), a ride-or-die member of the group.

Bob and Perfidia fall in love and conceive a daughter together but after the group draws the ire of Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) an unstable but ruthless military man, things begin to fall apart.

The powers that be confront and break up the group, with some being killed and others going into hiding.

Perfidia flees to Mexico, leaving Bob to look after daughter Willa. Sixteen years Willa is a bright and promising high school senior and Bob, while a devoted father, is a burnt-out addict with many regrets.

Bob is paranoid about his daughter’s safety and rightly so. Lockjaw is now an influential figure in shadier parts of the country’s security apparatus and is determined to hunt down the remaining members of the French 75.

Bob enters a life or death battle to protect Willa from these dark forces and will need all the help he can get.

Anderson is one of our greatest living directors. Whether crafting epics like Magnolia and There Will Be Blood to intimate comedies like Punch Drunk Love and Licorice Pizza, his back catalogue is eclectic in way that few filmmakers can boast of.

With One Battle After Another, Anderson has put together an intense, gripping, amusing, occasionally strange and ultimately heartfelt dramatic thriller.

Drawing on issues around immigration, race and authoritarian militarism, the film uses satirical elements to draw contrasts between self-regarding ideological viewpoints and more important, vital matters such as family and humanism.

Throughout the film we have some characters, heroes and villains, obsessing over extreme matters of the cultural and socio-political kind whereas others such as DiCaprio’s desperate protagonist Bob, come to learn that the stuff that really matters is closer to home, what you want to protect.

This is what strong-willed daughter Willa comes to symbolise.

On other side of the coin you have Penn’s bad guy, a man so obsessed with status and power he’s willing to sacrifice just about anything and anyone to get what he wants.

While the execution is occasionally a little arch, the film’s humour lends proceedings as much momentum as its various chase scenes and gun battles.

Performances certainly help to get this balance right. DiCaprio is on fine form as Bob (not too dissimilar to his character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Rick Dalton), while Penn, never one to phone it in, makes for a particularly memorable villain.

An honourable mention must go out to Benicio Del Toro, who is on scene-stealing form as taekwondo instructor with a few tricks up his sleeve.

One Battle After Another is a layered, relentless and memorable offering from a brilliant director.

RATING: ****

Matthew McCaul