LOS ANGELES - Radical violence. Immigration raids. White supremacists. Leonardo DiCaprio's politically charged new movie "One Battle After Another" could scarcely be more timely.
Part-action, part-drama, with plenty of comedy and almost guaranteed a bagful of Oscar nominations, the film centres on an ageing revolutionary and his teenage daughter.
It delivers a lesson on "what this next generation is going to have to deal with," DiCaprio told a press conference Thursday.
DiCaprio plays Bob, a political insurgent who specialises in explosives. The movie begins as he conducts undercover resistance operations at the US-Mexico border with his lover and co-conspirator, Perfidia (Teyana Taylor).
But when villainous Sean Penn's Colonel Lockjaw infiltrates the group, Bob is forced to flee with their infant Willa.
Sixteen years later, the bulk of the story finds Bob's outlaw history catching up with him and his now-adolescent daughter.
Lockjaw is in hot pursuit, happy to order arbitrary immigration crackdowns on the community where he believes his target is hiding.
The problem is, Bob has spent that time frying his brain with drugs and alcohol -- and can't remember the first thing about being a revolutionary.
"I love the idea that you expect this character's going to use massive espionage skills, but he cannot remember the password," said DiCaprio.
"His past is coming back to haunt him, and now it's passed on to the next generation, a sort of trauma."
The film, out September 26 in the United States, comes from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, the auteur behind "There Will Be Blood," "Magnolia," "Boogie Nights" and "Licorice Pizza."