Vive le cinéma! Bombs over Baktan Cross

With stellar acting and relentless momentum, thriller proves this collaboration was worth the wait

- Kibo Ngowi

One Battle After Another is a damn good movie. So good that it has critics lining up to declare it the best movie, not just of this year, but of the decade.

Even after my second viewing, I'm not willing to go that far, but I can understand the excitement. In an era of endless franchises, sequels and reboots, an original film from a celebrated director with a stellar cast is bound to feel like a breath of fresh air.

Inspired by Thomas Pynchon's Vineland, One Battle After Another follows the French 75, a leftist revolutionary group freeing detained migrants and bombing symbols of power.

“Ghetto” Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) fall in love, but their bond is disrupted after Commander Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn) coerces Hills into a relationship, leading to the birth of Charlene (Chase Infiniti), whose true father remains unclear.

Hills betrays her comrades and vanishes abroad, leaving Calhoun to flee with Charlene to the sanctuary city of Baktan Cross under the new identities of Bob and Willa Ferguson.