By all rights, a film so timely, so powerfully relevant, shouldn’t be this entertaining as well. It’s disheartening to see how little the world has changed in the decade and a half the film takes place over; evil never dies, it just mutates. We follow past-his-best freedom fighter Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is pursued by the fanatical Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) as he tries to save his daughter from white supremacists. ONE BATTLE, like the majority of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films, has been universally acclaimed and is deservedly all-but guaranteed to dominate come Awards Season. It’s epic in scale and scope, thematically complex and goes for the jugular in its criticism of contemporary society. It’s also relentless, thrilling and boasts the best work from DiCaprio, Penn and Benicio Del Toro in years. SSP