A Movie Touching One Raw Nerve After Another

"He doesn't own a cellphone, and he barks angrily at his teenage daughter's friends when they come up his driveway. His paranoia, played with clumsy charm by a mustachioed and bleary-eyed Leonardo DiCaprio, is half-cocked and somewhat comical. But Bob's behavior, One Battle After Another argues, is also entirely justified because of the terrifying brutality of the world-a reality that crashes into Bob's hazy reverie to create an electrifying, thoughtful blockbuster."

"The most important change is that the events are now set in the present day. Anderson doesn't portray Bob, an alias that the character assumes after going into hiding, as a crusty leftover from an earlier era. Instead, he's a former paramilitary vigilante who waged war against a fascist-leaning government more than a decade ago, freeing migrants from federal camps and bombing law enforcement as part of an insurgency group called the French 75."

Bob Ferguson is a single father living secluded in California, watching old movies, smoking weed, and recalling past revolutionary actions. He lacks a cellphone and reacts angrily to his daughter's friends while displaying paranoid, half-cocked behavior portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio. His paranoia becomes justified when the brutal realities of the world intrude on his quiet life, turning his experience into an electrifying, thoughtful blockbuster. The film cites Thomas Pynchon's Vineland for inspiration but relocates the story to the present, transforming Bob into a former paramilitary vigilante who freed migrants, bombed law enforcement, and fought a fascist-leaning government as part of the French 75.

Read at The Atlantic