movie review

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

Running time: 170 minutes. Rated R (pervasive language, violence, sexual content and drug use). <br>In theaters Sept. 26.

Unrelenting drive powers director Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling, violent, sweaty, vulgar and invigorating new movie “One Battle After Another.”

Its adrenaline-junkie characters, like Leonardo DiCaprio’s paranoid Bob, keep charging ahead as restless images both beautiful and hellish never pause to take in the Western scenery.

Even its title reeks of burning rubber on asphalt.

That nonstop, speed-demon forward motion could be why, at nearly three hours, the ambitious film never gets bogged down by its daunting length. “Battle” is simultaneously a marathon and a sprint. At the end I wasn’t tired — I was out of breath.

Gripp

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