One Battle After Another

Paul Thomas Anderson has been one of my favorite filmmakers since his divisive 1999 masterpiece, "Magnolia". I always approach his films with great anticipation for what he'll serve up.

I was a little apprehensive entering ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, knowing he had adapted it from Thomas Pynchon's novel "Vineland". The last time he adapted a Pynchon novel, it resulted in 2014's "Inherent Vice", a complete mess and my least favorite PTA effort.

I had nothing to worry about.

BATTLE is a frantic, action-packed dark comedy of epic proportions. It's adult, unflinching and twisted in the absolute best ways.

I didn't expect Anderson to conjure up sequences that felt like richly 1970's William Friedkin, or the best of Quentin Tarantino and DePalma, but he does, brilliantly. That's not to say this is my favorite PTA film. "There Will Be Blood" still remains firmly at the top, but this is a challenging, fascinating film.

Like QT's "Inglorious Basterds", ONE BATTLE runs just shy of three hours, but NEVER feels like it. Anderson keeps a barrage of characters coming at you in such a frenzied, hilarious pace that you can only hang on and enjoy the ride.

The film opens with a ragtag, safe to say, self-important revolutionary group, the French 75, in the final stages of planning to release a large group of illegal aliens held at the border. This sequence takes place around 2009, so it doesn't inherently carry all the baggage of the current global immigration debate. This is fine, as PTA never seems wholly interested in blatantly shoving one viewpoint versus another down your throat. He's focused on introducing us to some very extreme, crazy people on both side of the debate, peeling back layer after layer of their everyday lives.

(Like the best dark satire of our times, it will likely make you examine both sides and your position within that universe. There's plenty to interpret and discuss, to be sure. If you think that PTA is glorifying one side more than the other, take a step back and really look at these characters on BOTH sides.....)

These lives create the biggest action sequences of Anderson's filmography.

That opening sequence and a later bank robbery are pure Friedkin, moving at a violent pace as Jonny Greenwood's music score screams around you or sits just beneath the action, clicking the thrills like a voyeur metronome sitting just out of sight. Greenwood ( There Will Be Blood, The Phantom Thread) perches comfortably as PTA's composer muse, creating unique and unsettling notes for anything Anderson can envision.

Michael Bauman (The Brutalist, Licorice Pizza) shot the film in VistaVision/IMAX and its gritty as hell in the urban scenes, while painting every California landscape in its own, unique light.

Leonardo DiCaprio is hilariously stoned and off-kilter as Bob, providing the literal fireworks for the detention center breakout. His partner in the gang is powerhouse Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), who owns every room she's in, relishing the terror of anyone she sets her sights on. The descendant of a long line of revolutionaries, she is 110% committed to the cause, while Bob just seems to be having fun blowing some shit up.

During the operation, Perfidia runs into Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw, embodied by Sean Penn in his best screen performance in years. Their encounter takes a very unpredictable turn, raw, frank and pivoting on the power dynamic between the lifelong rigid(?) military man and the anti-establishment firebrand.

Bob and Perfidia's relationship hits a wall when they have their first child together, creating a turning point for both of them as their personal priorities shift.

After some clever and hilarious key plot points that I wont divulge here, the film flashes forward 16 years.

Their daughter Willa, now played by Chase Infiniti in a career launching performance, is a normal teenager living with her Dad, under the impression that her Mom died many years before.

Watching Infiniti in her scenes with DiCaprio and Penn is impressive. She goes toe to toe and rises above. I'd be shocked if she and Penn don't both get Oscar nominations for best supporting actress/actor.

Benecio Del Toro has never been funnier than he is here as Sensei Sergio St. Carlos, Bob's friend and fellow revolutionary who runs the karate school in town. I'm not saying any more about him because I laughed my ass off at every line, every quirky movement and choice that Del Toro makes. He steals every scene he's in.

If it feels like I'm describing the entire film, I've barely touched on the plot points. Like a modern day Robert Altman, creating a contemporary "Nashville" about family, revolution and power, Anderson deftly weaves many threads together into one brilliant narrative.

When Bob's distant past suddenly invades the present, the film is off and roaring again as a conspiracy/escape thriller that never lets up.

These characters come off the page thanks to Anderson's superb writing and an amazing, flawless cast.

I laughed loud and hard at the long scene in which Bob tries to call into revolutionary headquarters but can't remember his passwords. DiCaprio's comic timing and unending supply of profanity are off the charts.

"Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Hooterville Junction!" LOL

I was blown away by a long sequence at the end dubbed "River of Hills" by the music score. Dialogue-free, beautiful staged by Anderson & Bauman and set to Greenwood's tribute track to Don Ellis's propulsive "French Connection" score, it's a tense dual of cars across the many hills of a desert. For me, its the best use of rear view mirrors on film since Spielberg's "Duel".

It's stunning and explosive when the camera pulls back from those tight shots to widescreen mayhem.

In the "Like Tom Fkn Cruise" scene, tell me I'm crazy, but isn't that the Wicked Witch of the West's theme music from "The Wizard of Oz" weaving in and out of the track? Come on, Greenwood is just playing with us in the smartest ways possible at this point.

Another sequence felt like Brian DePalma's 'Scarface" was suddenly invading the film in both the look and score. These is chameleon-like, original filmmaking at its best.

Who knew Paul Thomas Anderson had an action film brewing in him?

Laugh out loud funny, violent, shocking and envelope pushing, ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is my third favorite PTA film behind "There Will Be Blood" and "Magnolia" and that's bloody great company.

An A+ by any measure.