Leonardo DiCaprio isn’t bringing you a smooth and capable action hero in his new film, promising instead ‘the opposite of Tom Cruise’.
The Oscar-winning actor, 50, stars in One Battle After Another as an ex-revolutionary attempting to reunite with his former colleagues to try and save his kidnapped daughter.
Directed by There Will Be Blood filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, the ‘masterful’ new film has attracted rave first reactions from critics branding it one of the best studio pictures in years in a sudden flurry of activity around the upcoming release.
For the majority of the satire-cum-thriller, DiCaprio’s character Bob wears a check-patterned dressing gown.
‘He’s trying to raise a daughter, and he doesn’t know how to do it right, when his daughter gets captured,’ the star told Entertainment Tonight.
‘Why take the bathrobe off? You gotta go. You gotta go get your girl.’
Name-checking one of cinema’s most renowned daredevils and his famous spy hero character Ethan Hunt, DiCaprio added: ‘It’s like the opposite of Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible. He does everything wrong. And he doesn’t land or stick any of his stunts.’
Co-star Benicio del Toro then shared he was a ‘fan’ of Cruise and added: ‘We look at Tom and we go, what is he going to jump from today?’
‘He’s doing the real, real!’ pointed out DiCaprio of his Hollywood colleague, who has driven a motorbike off a cliff, breathed his own carbon dioxide while filming an extended underwater sequence and hung from the wing of a plane as Ethan, as well as setting a new Guinness World Record this summer for the most burning parachute jumps by an individual (16, FYI) following filming for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.
One Battle After Another also references Cruise when del Toro’s character Sergio is seen telling Bob, ‘You know what freedom is? No fear, just like Tom Cruise’, only for him to fall out of the speeding car into a bone-crunching and ungainly roll in the dirt.
Del Toro, last seen leading Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, said of working with the Titanic and Killers of the Flower Moon star on their first movie together: ‘With Leo, you just let him bring the character, and you just … he’s the story. It’s like, work around him and just [making] sure that we fed the story with my character in it.’
‘Leo is one of those actors that I’ve been admiring for decades, and I never had a chance to work with. So getting this chance to work with him was a great experience and a great opportunity for me, and I hope he feels the same way,’ he added to People magazine at the One Battle After Another premiere in Los Angeles last week.
Although the embargo for formal reviews is yet to lift, initial responses to the film have been roundly positive, with IndieWire’s David Ehrlich sharing on X: ‘One Battle After Another might be the best movie released by a major American studio since I started working as a critic (~2010). Distressing how little else comes to mind!’
Meanwhile Slash Film editor Chris Evangelista dubbed it ‘one of the best of the year’ and The New York Times’ Kyle Buchanan singled it out as a major awards season contender.
‘The fall fests didn’t move the Oscar needle much, but One Battle After Another certainly will. Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest could be nominated across the board and finally nab PTA the top Oscar,’ he posted.
‘Paul Thomas Anderson’s #OneBattleAfterAnother is a relentless, impeccable, sublime masterpiece packed with powerhouse performances and an unstoppable freight train of a 3rd act, housing a car pursuit that would make William Friedkin proud,’ chimed in critic Courtney Howard with heaps of praise.
Matt Neglia of Next Best Picture also called it ‘the film of our time’.
‘Bracingly exhilarating, politically charged, heartfelt and funny as hell, it may be the most important film Paul Thomas Anderson has ever made, certainly his most urgent and relevant. The whole cast delivers with DiCaprio at his best when he deploys both his comedic and dramatic chops and he gets to do just that here,’ he tweeted, while also noting Sean Penn as ‘the best he’s been in years’.
‘It’s one cinematic delight after another, adding up to what is, in my mind so far, the best film of the year,’ he added.
One Battle After Another also features Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Alana Haim and Presumed Innocent’s Chase Infiniti in her debut movie role, for which she has also received widespread acclaim so far.
One Battle After Another releases in UK and US cinemas on Friday, September 26.
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