Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti
Certificate: 15
Run Time: 162 mins

One Battle After Another is the new Paul Thomas Anderson film, a filmmaker who I have a hit-and-miss relationship with. There Will Be Blood is an undisputed masterpiece, I love both Punch Drunk Love and Phantom Thread, but Magnolia, The Master and Licorice Pizza all left me cold. Anderson’s latest is another adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel (Inherent Vice was his first), although the director has taken some liberties with the source material by incorporating some of his own stories into the narrative.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays “Ghetto” Pat Calhoun, who we meet as a member of a revolutionary far-left group known as the French 75 with his partner Perdifia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor). The group has a successful run, but it’s undone by Perfidia’s relationship with the fiersome Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn). The film then jumps 16 years later where Pat (now living in hiding as Bob Ferguson) has become a paranoid drug addict who lives with his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) off the grid in the sanctuary city of Baktan Cross. But Lockjaw is still on their tail.

One Battle After Another is a Paul Thomas Anderson triumph – it’s a giddily exciting action epic with plenty of thrilling surprises up its sleeve. It’s fiersomely original, Anderson constantly subverts expectations in a refreshing way with some outrageous set-pieces too. There’s two heart-racing car chases, with the one in the final act particularly memorable for how simple it is – cinematographer Michael Bauman (who also lensed Licorice Pizza) intercuts between three drivers and a stunning desert vista. A 20-minute extended sequence mid-way through the film where DiCaprio’s character needs to evade the authorities is another wildly entertaining highlight. But under the surface of this riveting story, Anderson has plenty to ruminate on the current state of American affairs but in a playful way with plenty of intelligent humour.

Leonardo DiCaprio is fantastic in the lead, dabbling his hand at comedy once again after his last turn in the underrated Don’t Look Up. Once a sharp and intelligent explosives expert, Anderson gets a lot of mileage out of the character who fries his brain with drugs after 16 years and DiCaprio nails it. Is this one of his best roles? It’s hard to say because the actor is so good in almost everything he’s in.

If there’s an actor who’s a dead-lock for an acting Oscar nomination, it’s going to be Sean Penn, who quite possibly puts in career-best work as the bigoted Colonel Lockjaw. He is utterly ridiculous as the racist military officer, a parody of male machismo with a particularly memorable walk, with Penn deftly balancing physical comedy with a tragicomic storyline for the character. He’s magnificent and would be deserving of a Best Supporting Actor win.

Benicio Del Toro is another standout as a chilled-as-a-cucumber karate teacher, who happens to also be a community leader and he gets many memorable lines – “I’ve had a few small beers” will undoubtedly be a line the actor is going to be remembered for after this film. Finally, Chase Infiniti as Perfidia’s daughter is a terrific find and she’ll find instant stardom after this film.

The film is beautifully shot on VistaVision by Michael Bauman (the second film this year after The Brutalist) – there are so many memorable shots here, and he too would be deserving of awards attention. Jonny Greenwood turns in a sensational score, which is very unconventional but fitting and memorable. The score felt rather alien the first time I watched One Battle After Another, but on a second viewing, it just fits in so seamlessly and it’s straight up there as one of his best works.

One Battle After Another is a near-masterpiece from Paul Thomas Anderson and it’s certainly his best film since There Will Be Blood. This is a bold, infectiously entertaining epic thriller with a litany of top-quality performances and inventive set-pieces. I’m positive it’s going to be a film that appears on decade-end lists and will be talked about for years to come, and it’ll be hard to resist switching off if it comes on television with its outstanding pacing.

Is One Battle After Another perfect? Not quite. After two viewings, I don’t think the opening 30 minutes quite matches the energy of the rest of the film (but there’s still so many positives, especially a grisly car chase). When the film jumps to 16 years later, the rest of the 162-minute film is just perfectly paced. This is a film where you’ll pick up on subtle character cues or themes every time you rewatch it – it is bursting in spirit and substance. One Battle After Another is worth racing to the cinema for as soon as you can and goes straight up there as one of the best films I’ve seen this year.