Eleven years after Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson once again adapts Thomas Pynchon with One Battle After Another, a very loose reworking of the author’s Vineland that boasts many of the same strengths and weaknesses of the director’s prior act of translation.

Impeccably crafted and intensely timely, Anderson’s action-oriented drama is a propulsive and visceral tale of revolution, family, and the means by which autocracies attempt to corrupt from within, energized by a frantic Leonardo DiCaprio and a sadistic Sean Penn. As with his stoner detective odyssey, the auteur’s latest, in theaters Sept. 26, is heavier on commotion than character, “craziness” than outright comedy. However, electrified by virtuoso filmmaking, its enraged message comes through loud and clear.

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