‘One Battle After Another’ Review: Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn Are Brilliant in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Mesmerizing Vision of a Police-State America

The surprise of "One Battle After Another" is that while it speaks with a big vision to the dangers and anxieties of our moment, it’s also a drama that’s totally grounded and relatable. There’s a thematic heft to it, and the movie is frequently quite funny in a sidelong way, but it’s not some in-your-face didactic absurdist thing. "One Battle After Another" is a vision of society in captivity, but it’s a movie that never loses the pulse of its humanity.