REEL | Leonardo DiCaprio Chases 'One Battle After Another'

"Time doesn't exist, but it controls us anyway."

Warner Bros. Pictures

San Fernando Valley native Paul Thomas Anderson and one of our last true movie stars, Leonardo DiCaprio, finally team up in their long-awaited contemporary political action thriller. Filmed in the stunning 1950s VistaVision sideways 35mm widescreen film format and projected on glorious 70mm, One Battle After Another is as an uproariously incendiary yet highly comedic act of cinematic countercultural rebellion.

Told as a non-stop chase movie vaguely inspired by Thomas Pynchon's Reagan-era California novel Vineland, DiCaprio's former radical single-father Bob lives in hiding with his defiant, mixed-race teenage daughter (Chase Infiniti) some years after his vigilante wife (Teyana Taylor) disappeared after being captured and arrested. A series of developments leads to them comically going on the run from Sean Penn's depraved nemesis army general to avoid the destruction of their underground network of anti-government forces (known as the "French 75").

It's a blisteringly unrelennting and timely epic fronted by powerful Black women that's told through exciting car chases, highly comical set pieces, and deeply emotional conversations. Both Benicio del Toro and Regina Hall, in key supporting roles as helpful aids to Bob's leftist revolutionary acts, keep things moving by adding both farcical humour and relationship context to the series of escalating events.



There's a spectacular streak of absurdist satirical dark comedy in the vein of Dr. Stangelove, but oddly reminiscent of the cinematic style of The Big Lebowski. Anderson lights it all up by framing everything in stark brightness and clear-eyed depth. DiCaprio is chaotically hysterical yet loving as a desperate father in opposition to Infiniti's strong-willed, star-making performance.

Anderson's furiously relentless spectacle, told through DiCaprio's washed-up, bathrobe-clad freedom fighter stoner dad tells a surprisingly relevant revolutionary family saga about oppressive authoritarian rule under the power of hidden white supremacist forces. It's an arrestingly bold film of many topical ideas, including the justification of political violence, remixed into an entertaining thrill ride executed impeccably.

One Battle After Another screens exclusively on 70mm film at The Park Theatre.


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