Paul Thomas Anderson returns to the big screen with bullets, bombs and Leonardo DiCaprio. In “One Battle After Another,” their first film together, DiCaprio plays an aging revolutionary named Bob.
DiCaprio suits up in slippers and a beanie to save his kidnapped daughter and reunite with the explosions and car-chases he left behind.
It’s a film about freedom, fight and, most importantly to DiCaprio, family.
“He’s a disaster of a father, and then all of a sudden he’s put into this wild circumstance to try to save her,” DiCaprio said. “It’s just a beautiful bit of writing.”
You’ve seen The Dude from “The Big Lebowski,” but could you imagine him jumping out of a moving car while “hiding” a sniper rifle in a backpack? Now, you don’t have to.
DiCaprio read about Bob’s self-deprecation and sabotage in the script and knew the character would take him on a fun ride.
“I think it’s a complete setup for a sort of traditional trope that maybe we’ve seen a multitude of times before,” DiCaprio said. “But the character evolved as the movie went on.”
Bob’s biological and chosen family, and inadvertently the SWAT team that was glued to him, helped him evolve. Someone needed to remind him how military bases are as hard to entering your house drunk.
Enter Benicio del Toro’s Sergio St. Carlos. The sensei never leaves his nunchucks and words of wisdom at the dojo. He brings calm to Bob’s stoned chaos.
“Leo brings tons of energy, so I just danced with it and stayed,” del Toro said. “I was the anchor in some ways, even though the scenes were packed with movement.”
More of DiCaprio’s notable anchors include Regina King, Teyana Taylor, Sean Penn, and Chase Infiniti. Infiniti’s character, Willa, is an anchor and Bob’s purpose.
He gets off the couch to save her from Penn’s Steven J. Lockjaw’s military brigade. Bob’s ability to remember secret passwords was definitely in question. But his love for Willa was never like Infiniti’s dedication to getting in Willa’s skin.
“More than anything, what I wanted to do was hone in on her feeling of not fully knowing a bit of her story,” Infiniti said. “Regardless of any relationship that she has with a character, any storyline thing, I think that that really helped me drop into her.”
Early critics felt Infiniti, a 25-year-old making her feature debut with DiCaprio, was an outlier in a film with an Oscar-nominated cast and crew. Yet, to her co-stars, they are surprised this is her debut.
Infiniti commands fight scenes with Penn and emotional arguments with DiCaprio. Maybe she even outwits del Toro. There’s only one way to find out.
Head to an early screening of “One Battle After Another” at the Bill Cosford Cinema on Sep. 22 at 7p.m. Click here to reserve your ticket. Get ready for feels, laughs and thrilling action that has a deeper message below the surface.
“He can find humor in the absurdity in things, which he did in this,” King said. “It’s about love. It is about family. Connection, commitment, revolution.”