One Battle After Another (15)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

SET in an authoritarian US which has — surprise, surprise — become a fascist police state where immigrants are rounded up en masse and sent to military detention centres, Paul Thomas Anderson’s audacious and frankly insane new film is surprisingly on the nose. 

Written and directed by Anderson (Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood) and loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, it opens with Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) joining the love of his life Perfidia (a phenomenal Teyana Taylor), a member of the vigilante, revolutionary group French 75, in storming a detention centre and freeing all the immigrants being held prisoner inside, plus the capture and torture of the commander Colonel Steven L Lockjaw (Sean Penn). 

Sixteen years later Bob is living off-grid with his teenage daughter Willa (an extraordinary Chase Infiniti) when Lockjaw resurfaces to hunt them down. Bob’s former revolutionary friends reunite to help keep Willa safe. The problem is that Bob is a paranoid stoner who, due to his brain being fried, cannot remember the protocols and passwords set up by French 75. This results in one of the most hilarious and frustrating scenes in the film. 

In a bid to find Willa, Bob goes to her karate teacher Sensei (a delightful Benicio Del Toro) for assistance, yielding another surreal moment. 

This genre-busting non-stop action thriller — which is exceedingly dark at times and also surprisingly funny — seems to hold up a mirror to society. At its core, it is about a father trying to protect his daughter. DiCaprio is sublime as the hapless Bob, stoned out of his mind and dressed in a dishevelled dressing gown throughout, who cannot do anything right. 

But it is Penn as the racist and right-wing Lockjaw with a penchant for black women (particularly Perfidia) who gives the most memorable performance, while newcomer Infiniti, who is a star in the making, holds her own magnificently opposite heavyweights DiCaprio and Penn. She is the heart of the film. 

Shot in VistaVision, the action and chase sequences are totally crazy and edge-of-the-seat intense. 

“You know what freedom is? No fear! Like Tom Cruise!” Sensei tells Bob, which is the befuddled essence of this film while, around them, the regime eradicates all dissenters.  

It is a bizarre yet hugely entertaining ride which will stay with you long after it’s over.

In cinemas September 26.