Paul Thomas Anderson remakes Eddington into something compelling.

Not really, but I saw this the day after Eddington and they trade off some similar tropes of two men angrily fighting over ‘their woman’, interspersed with ideas of masculinity and rebellion and government manipulation. PTA though, knows how to drive a narrative in a way that keeps you watching.

A small band of revolutionary activists are prolifically setting bombs, freeing migrants and humiliating the military and powers that be. The powder keg of the group is Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), who seems to have an endless appetite for revolution regardless of the cost to human life. She continues this through her pregnancy, seeming to act as if she’s not actually about to have her baby, according to Deandra (Regina Hall), the gang member with the least interesting name.

Her partner is fellow and much more mellow activist ‘Bob’ (Leonardo DiCaprio). He is left literally holding the baby when everything goes awry and we then jump forward 16 years where said baby is spunky adolescent Charlene (Chase Infiniti), and they are living as father and daughter Bob and Willa in hiding in some rural place.

There is a complication though, personified by delightfully rooster-like Sergeant Lockjaw (Sean Penn). Penn cranks his characterisation up to 11 as the angry, white nationalist, military man who is a bit partial to black women when no one is looking. He, naturally, feels a sense of fierce entitlement to Perfidia and, by extension, her daughter. And Willa, who has never believed her father’s drug-addled paranoia about the wolf at the door, suddenly finds out that it is all real.

There are some great set pieces, particularly with Benicio Del Toro as martial arts Sensei Sergio St. Carlos who demonstrates the calm acceptance and warrior stance that he espouses in his work. Many of the other characters are paperthin, particularly the other revolutionaries like Mae West (Alana Haim again underutilised) and Junglepussy (Shayna McHyale) and even Perfidia who feels like a bit of a MacGuffin, there to drive the plot forward, which PTA does with gusto.

There are some really interesting camera choices, like pushing the boundaries of point of view from below or above and a road rash video game-like swooping camera following a delightful car chase across undulating roads.

It has some interesting things to say about politics and the rise of white nationalism, although this sometimes feels like a small sub text under the real story, which is Lockjaw and Bob fighting over their women.