“Viva la revolución,” screams Leonardo DiCaprio as flares fire and burst overhead in the riveting opening sequence of “One Battle After Another.” Writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson’s fantastic new film premiered Sept. 26, and it is safe to say the movie’s insurgent-military conflict storyline is absolutely electric. The beginning of the film depicts a prison break from an immigration detention facility, where the revolutionary group, the French 75, are helping terrified Spanish-speaking migrants and refugees escape the cruel military that had been holding them captive. 

While this may feel uncomfortably relevant to how the Trump administration has acted recently, that is exactly Anderson’s point.

The film stars DiCaprio as Pat “Ghetto” Calhoun, a paranoid demolitions expert working for the French 75. His partner, the flighty and boisterous Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyanna Taylor), helps lead the French 75 in their fight against the military. Sean Penn flawlessly portrays the Terminator-like Steven J. Lockjaw, the hyperfixated military colonel serving as their central enemy. Penn’s performance as Lockjaw shines with both his earnest desire to be recognized and the intense fervor with which he executes in his goals.

Alongside the main storyline, a Lacoste quarter-zip-clad white supremacist organization known as the Christmas Adventurers Club casually drops racial slurs, interracial hate, xenophobia, and antisemitism as they plot both with and against the military. 

After Pat Calhoun’s daughter, played by Chase Infiniti in a magnetic debut role, is kidnapped, he sets off on a rampage to find her, coming into conflict with everyone from another rebel agent (Regina Hall) to a bounty hunter (Eric Schweig) to a sensei (Benicio del Toro).

Although a 16-year time jump in the middle of the first act significantly slows down the story’s development, there is a growing energy and fervor woven into the film that crescendos in a gorgeously-shot and heart-pounding car chase in the third act. The film lasts a staggering 161 minutes, but it absolutely flies by thanks to both the soundtrack and the editing. Jonny Greenwood’s (Radiohead) thrilling plucked piano score builds to loud moments of catharsis, while Andy Jurgensen’s (“Licorice Pizza”) precise editing constantly maintains the audience’s focus. 

Throughout, Michael Bauman’s (“Licorice Pizza”) astounding cinematography maintains a sharp color palette of blues and yellows in practically every single shot. There are a number of engaging tracking shots and thrilling one-takes, and any moment when his camera follows a speeding car throughout the gorgeous desert vistas of the third act is museum-worthy.

Production designer Florencia Martin (“Babylon”) creates an intricately detailed world of storefronts and streets that feels lived-in and real, making it all the more devastating when the city of Baktan Cross, where Pat Calhoun and his daughter live, is ravaged. 

Outside of the notable design work and excellent acting, “One Battle After Another” feels searingly relevant to the political climate of Trump’s second term, both in its exposition and its messaging throughout. 

When a military agent infiltrates a crowd of protesters to throw a Molotov cocktail on orders from his colonel in the second act, he antagonizes police armed with batons and riot shields, causing tear gas to be launched into the air. It feels as though this film could have been written about the “No Kings” protests that took place throughout the country in June, but it is in fact a modernized adaptation of the 1990 novel “Vineland” by Thomas Pynchon about resistance to Ronald Reagan’s administration. 

While neither President Trump nor any modern politician is named, the comparisons are inevitable, and the parallels between the role of the military in this film and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in real life are pointed. 

There are many sequences that are extraordinarily tense that make the presence of a police car feel like a threat. When the revolutionaries’ plans go awry, the resulting chases make the police feel oppressively powerful. The audience roots for them as they run on foot, despite knowing the struggle against the goliath of the state’s police force is futile. 

Multiple times, we find scared immigrant families desperately trying to escape as they are hunted by armed militants through cities, trapped in a regime constantly trying to uproot them. The main characters of the film pass through these assaults, interacting with but never truly being able to save anyone. 

But even in the face of such grand and important themes, “One Battle After Another” is genuinely funny! Anderson’s tight script provides many moments of respite from an otherwise emotionally-wrought film. DiCaprio’s excellent physical humor shines as he hides from the military in a bathrobe and sunglasses; Colonel Lockjaw hears about a group of nuns who grow weed and fire machine guns.

Knowing as little as possible about “One Battle After Another” ensures a more enriching experience as Anderson’s carefully directed sequences gradually come together. The film is very well-paced, slowly revealing each essential element of the story exactly when it needs to. There are a number of twists and turns that keep the audience locked into the story’s developments, and it would be a shame to spoil some of the best here. Effectively, the film fights fire with fire in all the most entertaining ways. 

In an era when President Trump has deployed the National Guard and Marines against U.S. citizens in the past few months, a conservative Supreme Court has authorized the selective stop-and-questioning of people based on their ethnicity, and the administration’s Department of Homeland Security has launched ICE raids in the country’s biggest cities, perhaps our movies should not be subtle in their messaging. Perhaps “One Battle After Another” is the film that we need the most right now.