First things first: curb your expectations. The rumours that Paul Thomas Anderson has made one of the best films of the 21st century are, y’know, ever so slightly exaggerated.
However, the man who has already made one of the best films of the 21st century (There Will be Blood) has directed the coolest, most consummately masterful movie you’re likely to see all year. And its got Oscars glory just oozing out of every frame.
Based on Thomas Pynchon’s baffling postmodern novel Vineland from 1990, this is a far less incomprehensible romp through revolutionary American counterculture and the fascistic governmental forces hellbent on crushing it (times certainly haven’t changed that much). Although it’s equally farcical and almost as sprawling.
We open with Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio, on wonderful form) and members of underground group the French 75 busting a truckload of migrants out of a detention centre on the US/Mexico border.
Bob is the blue wire, red wire guy, the group’s explosives expert. Perfidia is simply one ball-breaking super-badass. “Let’s f*** while the bomb goes off!” she yells at boyfriend Bob. Later she’ll be peppering the air with lead, machine gun resting on her naked, ballooning pregnant belly.
You think Perfidia sounds quite the piece of work? Enter Sean Penn as Captain Steven Lockjaw, a psychopathic terminator with the social skills of an M16 assault rifle who’s set to relentlessly hound the French 75 to the end of his days.
With a blue-eyed death stare, ungainly robotic walk and constantly chewing his jammed-shut mouth (hence the surname), Penn’s is a wild character performance that’s surely a shoe-in for a nomination. There’s a deliciously perverse toilet scene with Penn and Taylor that plumbs the dark depths of farce.
The French 75 are bombing the shit out of everything and robbing banks (cue a swaggering cameo from rapper Junglepussy) to raise the cash for the revolution against the fascist corporate complex. And then, thanks to Lockjaw (who pops up seemingly at will) things go arse-up.
Without spoiling this hugely enjoyable ride, fast forward 16 years and Bob is living the “quiet” life with his and Perfidia’s now teenage daughter Willa (stormingly well played by Chase Infiniti). But that motherf***er Lockjaw just won’t give up.
Before we can say “the revolution will not be televised”, Willa is missing and Bob (now brain-fried by his booze and drug use) is in a desperate paranoid panic to find her.
If jobs-worth call centre workers are your bête noire, there’s an utterly hilarious, instant classic of a scene in which Bob has forgotten the codeword when he calls the French 75 for help.
There’s more, plenty more. This is postmodernism in the sense of “plurality”. Benicio del Toro plays Sergio, a karate sensei with his own underground Latin-America network who comes to the aid of Bob; an impossibly laid-back foil to Bob’s hapless chaos.
John Hoogenakker is Tim, the hatchet man for elite, shadowy white supremacist organisation, the Christmas Adventurers Club. And there’s even a nunnery called The Sisters of the Brave Beaver! They are all out to get each other and, yes, there will be lots of blood.
It’s a rollicking riot that Anderson marshals into what might be the most enjoyable cinema experience this year. And as for directorial virtuosity, a slow-burn car chase across the endlessly undulating humps of a desert road (accompanied by Jonny Greenwood’s exquisite staccato snare-drum score) is simply genius.
What Anderson has turned out is something of a cinephile’s visual symphony. If there were Proms devoted to films instead of music in the future, One Battle After Another would be one of the first movies to join the repertoire. And yes, Oscars must be coming...
One Battle After Another is in cinemas from September 26
