Richard Crouse

SYNOPSIS: Loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel “Vineland,” “One Battle After Another” is a story of rebellion and what happens when the tentacles of the past reach out to touch a new generation.

CAST: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

REVIEW: “One Battle After Another” begins as a story of The French 75, a revolutionary group on a mission to free hundreds of detainees at the US-Mexico border. Explosives expert Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) and co-conspirator Perfidia (Teyana Taylor) are freedom fighters and lovers who stage daring raids that attract the attention of the aptly named Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn).

Cut to sixteen years later. With Perfidia no longer in the picture, Bob, now stoned and drunk much of the time, lives off the grid with their daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti). Fearful his past will catch up to them, Willa isn’t allowed to have a cell phone and never leaves the house unless she has a special pager undetectable by everyone except French 75 members.

When Lockjaw reemerges, now working with a group of white supremacists, Bob is forced back into his old life, trouble is, all that lingers from his revolutionary days is a deep paranoia, the result of massive drug use. When Willa disappears, he must clear his addled brain long enough to track her down.

At almost three hours in length, “One Battle After Another” is an epic story that mixes and matches the political and the personal. A satirical look at the extremes of the left and right, and the resulting tribalism and polarization, when the film settles in after its first action packed hour it focusses on Bob, a revolutionary well past his best by date.

DiCaprio channels “The Big Lebowski’s” shambolic Dude. From his ever-present bathrobe and slightly bewildered facial expressions to his loyalty to friends and family and resilience the star’s take on Bob is a fun and funny homage to Jeff Bridges’s iconic performance. It allows DiCaprio the opportunity to display his comedic chops but also show emotional depth.

He’s at the center of a sprawling film, a movie about the ever-growing chasm between opposing political sides, but the movie succeeds because, at its heart, it’s a thrilling, redemptive family drama about what bonds us, not what divides us. Bob is a hot mess, a deeply flawed guy, but he steps up when his past actions put his daughter’s life in danger, and in the process finds reconciliation in that fractured relationship amid chaos he helped create.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson, who also wrote the script, has a lot on his mind. With its take on radical politics and domestic terrorism, the movie feels timely, while its portrayal of the connection between father and daughter is timeless.