The newest Paul Thomas Anderson movie 'One Battle After Another' is the directors second Thomas Pynchon adaptation, and like 'Inherent Vice' it dosen't totally come together. It's like a movie from an alternate universe, as adapting Pynchon's 1990 novel about an ex revolutionary whose teenaged daughter's life is threatened by an old adversary, this just feels off with a contemporary setting.
Featuring a large and talented cast and a bigger then average budget for a PTA production, owing to the presence of Leonardo DiCapiro in the lead. It's uneven. I wasn't expecting the films prolonged backstory section, the tone is all over the place and I can't decide how much of Sean Penn's performance was meant to be taken seriously. This wants to be a thinking mans action movie, and has a few solid sequences in that vain, as well as some fun characters, with Benico del Torro at the top of that list. It's politics are both muddled and hit you over the head obvious; had this movies tired revolutionaries been Right wing instead of Left wing...
Still so much is happening so fast that you don't get much time to reflect as the movie progresses. I enjoyed watching 'One Battle After Another' on the big screen, that's the way to see it, but I don't know how rewatchable it will prove to be: it could be a joy or it could be a drag, odds seem 50/50, don't know which elements will win out. For now however I'm giving it ***
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