One Battle After Another. the revolution will be a mad caper

This action thriller's constant tug-of-war between raw reality and screwball absurdity makes for a distracting experience at times.

- By Noelle Adams

Though his filmography is quite diverse, when it comes to the work of the writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, it seems fair to say that public perception leans heavily in one direction.

Films like Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood and The Master are emotionally heavy affairs, sometimes even harrowing, as heavily flawed characters give in to long-simmering tensions, leading to explosions of shocking violence.

The point is that Anderson's work, despite having earned 11 Academy Award nominations — not to mention top accolades at the Cannes, Venice and Berlin film festivals — isn't traditionally crowd-pleasing stuff.

This makes the filmmaker's latest, One Battle After Another, unusual in its audience accessibility. That said, the action thriller ensemble isn't without its idiosyncrasies, which challenge the viewer on a tonal front.

In One Battle After Another, inspired by Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Bob Ferguson, a man who has largely lost himself in drugs and alcohol after going into hiding 16 years earlier with his then infant daughter, Willa. Bob's reason for vanishing is self-preservation.