Plot twist: an acclaimed director and some of the best actors of their generations teamed up and made a good movie!

“One Battle After Another” is the tenth film by director Paul Thomas Anderson, and follows a former revolutionary (Leonardo DiCaprio) who must rescue his daughter (Chase Infiniti) from a corrupt military official (Sean Penn). Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, and Teyana Taylor also star.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that Paul Thomas Anderson is one of my favorite directors, but I do tend to like his films. “There Will Be Blood” and “Magnolia” are both fantastic, and “Punch-Drunk Love” is so tender and features one of Adam Sandler’s best performances. Anderson has had a few misses along the way (“Licorice Pizza” and “Inherent Vice” are both pretty blah), but when I saw his next film was going to star Leonardo DiCaprio I thought it was a match made in heaven. And while “One Battle” isn’t the best film of Anderson’s career, it is unlike anything he’s ever made before.

Anderson’s films are often somber and follow humans at their lowest or most desperate points but they are often sneakily funny, too, and both things are the case here. Even in the most serious of scenes, he’ll break up the tension with a character nonchalantly out-the-blue saying something like “why is your shirt so tight?” DiCaprio has said he sometimes feels like his true calling was comedy not dramas, and he is given ample amounts of material to deliver funny stoner dad jokes here, as well as some physical humor.

Chase Infiniti has starred in some TV shows but this marks her film debut, and if I didn’t know that then I would assume she’e been doing this since birth. She seamlessly holds her own against Oscar-winners DiCaprio, Bencio del Toro, and Sean Penn, and omits a sense of rage hidden beneath teenage vulnerability; I am really excited to follow her career.

As our villain, Sean Penn is amusing and goofy as a wannabe hardened soldier, who in reality is a pretty big loser. Penn gives his Col. Lockjaw little ‘isms–like a very unserious waddle walk–that add depth to the performance, although there is one aspect of his character arc that I felt was a little too unserious given the context or tone of certain scenes (though I think Anderson’s script and direction are more to blame than Penn).

Anderson has never made an action film before (there are some gunshots here and there, but never any big-scale sequences), so it is a welcome surprise that he shoots chase and shootout scenes here so fluidly. There is one car chase sequence where the camera smoothly sails up and down a series of hills, and it is beautiful, fun, and tense all at once. The film has become noted for its budget reaching as high as $175 million, a crazy figure considering Anderson’s highest-grossing film, “There Will Be Blood,” made just $76 million, but I do think we have to commend Warner Bros. for having the guts to give an auteur director so much money to make their vision (it already worked out in their favor earlier in the year with “Sinners” and “Weapons”).

A few more random other things worth highlighting: Jonny Greenwood’s musical score is engaging, a fun blend of strings and piano, and it heightens the tension of the action scenes, especially in the final act. The film drops a few buzzwords in an attempt to seem topical, but while this is very much a politically-charged film it isn’t outright a right- or left-leaning picture (it pokes fun at both sides, though one can easily figure out what in our world Anderson is mocking or criticizing a touch more than the other). There is also that early subplot involving Penn that I touched on that comes back up later, and I just don’t totally think Anderson nailed the proper tone and depiction that he was going for (I can’t say what or why without spoilers). It doesn’t ruin the film but I thought in a movie full of big action, amusing performances, and socially-relevant themes, this one aspect stood out as not-so-tight.

“One Battle After Another” feels like a goofy companion piece to the Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old Men,” and also plays a bit like this year’s “Eddington,” too. The film is expertly edited (you do not feel the 160 minute runtime at all; editor Andy Jurgensen the sneaky MVP), and it is so refreshing to see a crowd-pleasing movie made by an auteur director on the big screen. I’m interested in what a rewatch will do for this one (right now it ranks as probably PTA’s fourth-best for me), but I’m just glad that a film like this even exists in the first place.

Critics Rating: 8/10