Tags: blog, film, thriller, 2025, essential
Author: KickingK
Date: Sunday November 30th, 2025
Paul Thomas Anderson is an idiot.
Paul Thomas Anderson is an idiot. What the hell is he thinking? This film is two hours and forty two minutes long. It should be slow and languid, allowing the characters to slowly chew over the themes of the film with endless expositionary dialogue.
Instead, this film starts at rocket speed, the opening salvo is an entire two hour long movie edited into thirty minutes. Come along, keep up, chop-chop.
After that, it only slightly lessens the pace. The next two and a bit hours, effectively being one extended chase sequence, manages to pack in more ideas than most multi-series tv epics.
If PTA wanted to make money, he'd split this up into one hours episodes, show every single story thread to it's conclusion and get Amazon/Netflix/HBO to pay umpty-million dollars per episode for five series at ten episodes a pop.
What an idiot.
Thankfully PTA's poor financial decision making has gifted us with an absolute banger of a movie.
After his radical activism past finally catches up with him, Bob (played by DiCaprio) is separated from his daughter, Willa (played by Chase Infiniti), and spends the rest of the film desperately trying to catch up with her. Fair play to Leo, he's taken on a role here where he's very much not the hero. Hell, he's not even the main character. Instead, much of the film is spent following him as the main story happens around him. Bob is persistent but does nothing to affect the plot.
Instead, the film is very clear on who and what is making things happen as a wildly antagonistic ecosystem of interests battle each other out. From the militarised police/immigration control to the left-wing, pro-community organisers to the wealthy elite that own the industries that employ the immigrants and benefit from both sides. It's tempting to say that we see this escalating battle play out through Bob's eyes but he's mostly oblivious to it, focusing entirely on keeping his own shit together and finding his daughter.
There's no question as to who the true hero's of the movie are: All the regular people who take the time to help Bob and Willa. Highly organised, highly motivated and fighting tooth and nail, risking everything to help out people they don't even know for no more reason than they're on the same side. Benicio Del Toro turns up in a minor cameo role and nearly steals the film. Without wishing to belabour the point, if PTA was after the money, there's a whole spin off series right there.
The breadth of the political vista on display here is breathtaking. It's a breakneck tour of the sharp end of the US immigration 'debate' and its consequences.
Another notable thing about this movie is its depiction of the police and the elites that control them. Make them too dangerous and they can become exciting and a little bit sexy. But lean too heavily into mockery and you can lessen their danger to ordinary people and the fear they can inspire. This film walks the line between the two perfectly.
Wonderfully, we get to see the things they love about themselves subtly used against them. They think they're cool, heroic and suave, better than the 'wetbacks' they're brutalising. But the reality is the very symbols of their power and masculinity are silly, preposterous and insecure. "Why is your shirt so tight?" should go down as one of the truly great pieces of movie dialogue.
And finally, I loved the way the character of Willa is treated. She's never victimised by the film, even though she's the only character who has had no say in the unfolding events. It's really quite something to see such a profound character arc in a character who has almost no agency.
Like I said at the start, Paul Thomas Anderson is a genius.
