United States, 2025
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
With Leonardo DiCaprio (Bob Ferguson), Teyana Taylor (Perfidia Beverly Hills), Chase Infiniti (Willa), Sean Penn (Steven J. Lockjaw)
A whole story delivered at such a breakneck speed it leaves the audience bewildered, both in thrall with the hectic and brutal violence and the colorful and blunt characters involved in hyper-dramatic actions bathing in open ideological war and astonished to watch everything wrapped up well before the advertised (and real) running time of 164 minutes is near completion and everybody’s fate seemingly sealed for good: is it possible to fathom such an energized narration craftily and delightfully unfolding so brashly and efficiently, a whole world handled the fast-speed way still hitting all the buttons and resonating deeply with the audience even as its elements have been juggled so magically and teasingly to mind-blowing effect?
Director Paul Thomas Anderson not only imagined such an extraordinary quick and great first part for a new film, he shot and edited it handsomely, offering his tenth feature film a most gripping overture, exhilarating in visual terms and arresting in terms of characters and human conflicts. In a way, this stylistic approach fits nicely with what these folks are up to: most of the characters are political activists who are clearly anchored in the far left cross-currents and have chosen the path of terrorism. So the film is off on a high-octane and war-like mix of suspense, pyrotechnics, and nail-biting confrontations as one terrorist operation follows another, with the attack of a military-run camp where illegal migrants are packed the first terrorist activity, which may be the more elaborate and memorable in the movie as far as shooting skills, special effects, and narrative tension are concerned, but above all the most decisive as the long and jerky sequence introduces the lead characters and the root cause of the hunting game played later and making up the core of the long second part which is actually the story that matters the most.
Nothing seems to stop the highly clever and trained terrorists despite heavy police effort. Among them stand out the couple made up of the solidly focused and accomplished, even if sometimes he is huffing and puffing, Bob Ferguson, and the impressively abrasive, daring, relentless, and provocative Perfidia Beverly Hills. The man can easily be overwhelmed by the lust and violence of the woman whose family does not really trust him. An unexpected pregnancy seems first to tighten their bonds before fraying them: she runs away but still keep taking part in operations while he struggles to take care of their baby girl.
They have a nemesis – with a weird outlook. Steven J. Lockjaw was heading the military camp attacked at the beginning and was sexually humiliated by Perfidia Beverly Hills. So he has been keen to chase them, to watch them, and to nab them – though in fact she is the one he wants to nab. Yes the perfectly named soldier (his jaws nearly always locked, words often spit while his teeth are gritting, walking and gesturing stiffly or jerkily, always more like a robot) has an understandable grudge but harbors also a burning desire – he may want to get punished Perfidia Beverly Hills but he wants even more to have another fuck with her. This schizophrenic attitude means he is trailing the group to trail her but never tries to arrest her even when possible, just wishing she could arouse him again. She plays this pervert game once and then moves on. He does not and when she is arrested after a heist carried out to raise funds for the terrorist actions went badly awry he sits right next to her, eager to possess her. The trouble is that this time he is not oblivious of his policing duties and talks her into becoming a rat to avoid jail. She gives in and speaks but once free ran away (to never reappear). Her fellow activists, and her baby girl, are forced to go underground and vanish fast.
The film moves, rather jumps, forward nonchalantly and sixteen years have passed. Bob Ferguson is now a lazybones and no-hoper living in a shack deep in the countryside, trying to get along with a daughter who is now a bright and resolute teen, Willa. Steven J. Lockjaw has kept moving up the ladder of responsibilities and duties, quite at ease with administrations cracking down harder and harder on migrants. He looks such an awesome poster-boy conservative true soldier that he is invited to join a secret club of die-hard conservatives vowing to keep the nation pure and safe, feeling this is their superior duty making them indeed superior. The soldier is thrilled but painfully aware his flirt with the African American terrorist could sully his repute. So he decides to use his position and the loyal troops under his command to find the girl she had to check whether Bob Ferguson is the real father or whether his bad luck made him Willa’s father. The key narrative lies in this chase, its baffling and entertaining twists and turns, its impact on Willa (a terrific Chase Infiniti), who is thrown into a stunning learning curve on terrorism and adulthood, and its critical impact on her relation with Bob Ferguson, who is also in for a few momentous challenges.
Till the very end, which for the soldier is cruelly unforgiving and handled with this film’s trademark wryness, the plot depends on that very extraordinary premise: a conservative running amok and wreaking havoc all around him, setting on fire a whole community, and reckoning to kill a teenager for the only reason and the only goal of being part of select club of like-minded arch-conservatives (sarcastically named The Christmas Adventurers Club). This is a robustly damning and caustic indictment of an elite mindset and specifically the self-righteousness, ideological self-confidence, and terrifying lack of self-doubt thriving in a fringe group of the political chessboard. The high-ranking officials offering Steven J. Lockjaw to be one of them do not claim to be smart or talented or that any such skill is really needed in their club – suffice to feel superior because of proudly-held supremacist views. That please the soldier hugely but also lands him in dangerous grounds.
Steven J. Lockjaw’s frantic obsession with the club membership is perfect fodder for absurd and scandalous actions, handled with a cringing comic touch, and points to a blinding commitment to status and prestige and an insane quest for ideological validation and self-validation on the most snobbish terms that are deeply ludicrous, pathetic, but also shocking when they drive the individuals to go beyond the bounds and acting lawlessly even as they do feel they stand on a higher ground. The satire is scathing, and splendidly played by actor Sean Penn and framed by Anderson, and more than welcome as their country is in the grip of a sadly deep polarization and a mad race for self-justification and self-righteousness (what makes it even more biting is that the select conservatives Steven J. Lockjaw worships become aware he erred on the wrong side of the racial lines they cherish and decide coldly do him in).
Tackling, as his terrorists act boldly, the toxic topic of migration, with a plot very loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s book Vineland, Anderson, who offered a searing view of American history with “There Will Be Blood” (2007), sets himself on the front line of the political wars troubling ominously the waters of the United States in the 2020s. Tracking how a community struggles to protect migrants and the hapless Bob Ferguson looking for his daughter and caught in the Machiavellian and murderous tactics of the perverted soldier, he may look fairly sympathetic to their cause but actually remains concerned with keeping the pyrotechnics and the sheer energy underpinning his whole business from the beginning while emphasizing the extended and tragic consequence of Steven J. Lockjaw’s gobsmacking vanity. It also helps observing a former terrorist at a loss trying his best to fight an unexpected battle so long after other ones.
Blind pursuits of dubious objectives is not exclusive to reactionary right-wingers – the far-left can also be slammed and in this case the words and actions of Perfidia Beverly Hills are reason enough to dislike her. But her chutzpah and charm, and the sterling if upsetting, performance of actress Teyana Taylor, are hard to forget: the character is a bit complicated. Her companion is also hard to dismiss fully, and not only because he has the good looks of Leonardo DiCaprio. The brilliant comic touch handling his character turns him into a delightfully, sympathetic, inefficient character while also offering opportunities to satirize left-wing underground language and activism. There is no heroics at play here, refreshingly, and in stark contrast with his nemesis whose heroics are deliberately played up and twisted so as to recall an iconic character like Rambo only to let actually this walking caricature of him taking center stage. Bob Ferguson is bumbling and blundering, huffing and puffing, grumbling and moaning nearly all the time, overwhelmed by his sudden change of fortune and confused about the return to terrorism ethos and praxis it causes.
That he manages to get results is great. But the most moving part of the story is how the adventure, shot deftly in scenic western landscapes and roads in a tribute to the 1970s movies, eventually strengthens his relation with Willa, if only because she has to learned quite a few tricks on her own and to direct her own energy purposefully – and on very revolutionary terms. The reuniting of these minds and souls the trouble of growing up a teen and becoming a shiftless oldie have threaten to separate for good gives the film a happy ending and an emotional climax truly graceful and wonderful after so much sound and fury. It stands out as the most enjoyable part of an exciting cinematic ride masterfully shot in a glorious 70mm VistaVision (a long and complex car chase involving three different players on an endless and strikingly humped road altering decisively these characters’ fate should remain a great cinematic achievement for a long time).