Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another takes a minute to get into. Which is an odd thing to say considering the film's action starts the moment it starts. Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), her boyfriend Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and others make up the French 75, a radical organization fighting for immigrant rights, abortion rights, and a slew of rights that you can think of.
By the time the credits stop rolling, Perfidia has betrayed the group, causing the deaths of several members and the need for Pat and his and Perfidia's daughter to go into hiding using aliases. Fast forward sixteen years and Charlene/Willa (Perfidia and Pat's daughter played by Chase Infiniti) is kidnapped as Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn) tries to ensure his acceptance into the film's KKK coded group. It's a lot happening so fast and it took me awhile to get settled in, but once I locked in, I really enjoyed the film.
Inspired by Thomas Pynchon's novel "Vineland" this film is incredibly political. I'll keep my review short due to this, but I highly enjoyed it. This is Leonardo DiCaprio at his funniest. Part of the film was also shot in my hometown of El Paso, Texas and it was lovely seeing one of the big action scenes take place in downtown EP. So much love for my hometown.
The film was a fun and wild ride and while it took me awhile to get into it, once I did, I did not want it to end.
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