Leonardo DiCaprio stars in a ‘dazzler’ of a comedy-action-drama

At the immigrant centre, Perfidia encounters the sinister Captain Steven Lockjaw, a character as broadly drawn as his name. Sean Penn makes him thoroughly convincing as a sexual creep who later bullies and blackmails her, and who admits that he is drawn to her because she is black. Perfidia soon goes underground, abandoning Bob and their baby, and it’s enough to say here that her perfidious name suggests duplicity for a reason.

The opening sequences are taut, but the film really takes off and the comedy comes in when the story jumps ahead 16 years and lands in Bob’s small house. As he showed in Catch Me If You Can (2002), DiCaprio has more flair for comedy than he’s known for. He makes Bob’s goofiness and shambolic way of life – drinking, smoking and watching the political film The Battle of Algiers (1966) on television – amusing in itself. But DiCaprio also displays Bob’s fierce love for his daughter, Willa (a poised and confident Chase Infiniti), with just a few touches. It’s in the sweet way he calls her “Honey” and the concern in his eyes, which Anderson captures in close-up. For all his wit, Anderson can be a chilly, cerebral film-maker, and DiCaprio’s emotional warmth in the role balances that.

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Drama and comedy co-exist with remarkable, virtuosic ease here. One of the plot threads Anderson weaves in so well is Lockjaw’s attempt to join the Christmas Adventurers Club, a secret society of white supremacists – which, given his old obsession with Perfidia, is the ultimate hypocrisy. Anderson deftly makes the organisation horrifying yet ridiculously funny, a group of rich white men (Tony Goldwyn plays one of its leaders) who insist they are “superior human beings”. His membership bid leads Lockjaw to send a militia to prowl Bob’s town of Baktan Cross, rounding up migrants as a pretext for finding Bob and Willa. The enigmatic military figures are unidentified, with no official insignia on their fatigues, a touch that only makes them more ominous.

Silly and tragic also mix when Willa is taken, and Bob has forgotten the password he needs to get help from his old radical group, now underground. DiCaprio is at his comic best as Bob fumbles through the nightmare of trying to find her, enlisting her karate teacher, always called Sensei (Benicio del Toro). Sensei combines helping Bob with racing to save migrants from a raid by Lockjaw’s troops. The raid actually resonates with current events better than it fits in the film, but Anderson and the actors make it work.

All of this leads to a car chase up and down hills that makes you feel as if you’re on a roller coaster in a vast, desolate desert landscape. The film, which was shot in widescreen VistaVision, has an epic feel throughout, whether it depicts a large military helicopter landing or a ramshackle street in Baktan Cross.