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At the immigrant centre, Perfidia encounters the sinister Captain Steven Lockjaw, a personality as broadly drawn as his title. Sean Penn makes him completely convincing as a sexual creep who later bullies and blackmails her, and who admits that he’s drawn to her as a result of she is black. Perfidia quickly goes underground, abandoning Bob and their child, and it is sufficient to say right here that her perfidious title suggests duplicity for a purpose.
The opening sequences are taut, however the movie actually takes off and the comedy is available in when the story jumps forward 16 years and lands in Bob’s small home. As he confirmed in Catch Me If You Can (2002), DiCaprio has extra aptitude for comedy than he is recognized for. He makes Bob’s goofiness and shambolic lifestyle – ingesting, smoking and watching the political movie The Battle of Algiers (1966) on tv – amusing in itself. But DiCaprio additionally shows Bob’s fierce love for his daughter, Willa (a poised and assured Chase Infiniti), with only a few touches. It’s within the candy method he calls her “Honey” and the priority in his eyes, which Anderson captures in close-up. For all his wit, Anderson could be a chilly, cerebral film-maker, and DiCaprio’s emotional heat within the position balances that.
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Drama and comedy co-exist with remarkable, virtuosic ease here. One of the plot threads Anderson weaves in so well is Lockjaw’s attempt to join the Christmas Adventurers Club, a secret society of white supremacists – which, given his old obsession with Perfidia, is the ultimate hypocrisy. Anderson deftly makes the organisation horrifying yet ridiculously funny, a group of rich white men (Tony Goldwyn plays one of its leaders) who insist they are “superior human beings”. His membership bid leads Lockjaw to send a militia to prowl Bob’s town of Baktan Cross, rounding up migrants as a pretext for finding Bob and Willa. The enigmatic military figures are unidentified, with no official insignia on their fatigues, a touch that only makes them more ominous.
Silly and tragic also mix when Willa is taken, and Bob has forgotten the password he needs to get help from his old radical group, now underground. DiCaprio is at his comic best as Bob fumbles through the nightmare of trying to find her, enlisting her karate teacher, always called Sensei (Benicio del Toro). Sensei combines helping Bob with racing to save migrants from a raid by Lockjaw’s troops. The raid actually resonates with current events better than it fits in the film, but Anderson and the actors make it work.
One Battle After Another
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti
Release date: 26 September
All of this leads to a car chase up and down hills that makes you feel as if you’re on a roller coaster in a vast, desolate desert landscape. The film, which was shot in widescreen VistaVision, has an epic feel throughout, whether it depicts a large military helicopter landing or a ramshackle street in Baktan Cross.
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