If you know the significance of the code phrase “Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, Hooterville Junction,” then we can be friends and see the movie “One Battle After Another” together.

But, even if you’re not seated next to yours truly, screen it.

Your future may depend on it.

Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) has been living underground for quite a while following the apprehension of his lover (Teyana Taylor) for their activities with a group known as The French 75.

And after 16 years of paranoia — both real and substance-inspired — he’s back on the run when a distress call lets him know he and his daughter (Chase Infiniti) are in the crosshairs of a persistent military leader (Sean Penn) from the past with a score to settle.

Though he has a whole network of people helping him navigate his way to safety, Pat may be his own worst enemy as he keeps screwing up proper protocol and does his best to wing it in a bid for freedom.

Leo’s played all types over the years from the loathsome to the saintly and plenty of well-meaning rascals in between, but this blend of middle-aged hippie and overprotective single dad is a winning combination for all the weirdest reasons as the lesser half of a dynamic couple whose heart is in the right place even if his brain is toast.

And given the physical punishment he endures in his egress, it’s a surprise he can still talk…

Conversely, DiCaprio is mirrored by a nemesis for the ages in Penn. From the name Steven T. Lockjaw — because apparently Gomer Incel Pyle was too on the nose — to his very precise haircut, the vibe of minimally effective but intensely furious authority oozes off him.

His fearfulness is matched only by his buffoonery and lack of self-awareness, espousing hateful ideology but with a certain amount of hypocrisy as he and Pat remain inextricably tied together in their fragility and in their identity by the woman that have made an impact on them.

Taylor plays the real hero of this narrative — a complicated and hot-headed revolutionary with the sobriquet Perfidia Beverly Hills who has no regrets about balancing a machine gun against the curvature of her pregnant belly — who only appears in the first act with the rest of her story to be told through those who remember her, whether fondly or otherwise.

With Benicio Del Toro as the characteristically zen sensei aiding Pat in his egress and Regina Hall as the no-nonsense cohort keeping his daughter safe, there are allies everywhere, but one can only do so much when an evil cabal known as The Christmas Adventurers Club — The secret knock is “Jingle Bells” — is pulling the strings.

Imagine if the Coen brothers had made “No Country for Old Men” with the protagonist of “The Big Lebowski,” or if somehow duo of “Thelma and Louise” crossed paths with the pair from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

Or if Harold and Kumar happened to bust in on the family from “Running on Empty.”

It seems unlikely that Paul Thomas Anderson had any of these cinematic intersections in mind when he got this screenplay underway — loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s “Vineland” — but you can see how I how I got there.

This is the type of film that weaves stoner comedy elements of forgetfulness of forgetfulness and ineptitude with the unrelenting action of a tense political thriller.

Just as Anderson did with the accidental noir piece “Inherent Vice” with a cartoonishly bumbling hero in a very real life-or-death situation with both emotional and physical stakes.

The director shakes off the definitive setting of his past period pieces and keeps us guessing with exactly what year it is with surroundings that seem out of place in 2025.

Or maybe that’s just because of Pat’s preference to keep things low-tech and less traceable in his communications. To be fair, it is tricky to recall decades-old code words living in a time when our phones do the remembering for us.

And there’s something curiously satisfying in the presentation of a guy whose life depends on unearthing necessary information from his addled noggin moments after a heated argument with his kid over pronouns.

The dialogue is solid as ever from a writer like Anderson, but his aesthetic feels wholly different in his latest feature, the closest thing he’s made to an action flick.

Everybody loves a high-speed chase, but let’s not discount just how gripping a mid-speed chase through busy traffic or a hazardous desert highway can be — I would argue they’re more engaging moments behind the wheel than any moment from the “Fast and the Furious” films.

Every facet of Anderson’s direction is firing on all cylinders, from the lighting that’s often overwhelmingly bright — all the better to highlight the shady real-world issues happening right out in the open — to maintaining a delicate balance between light comedy elements and taut, visceral social commentary.

You may not think it’s his best film — “There Will Be Blood” is tough to top — but it it is undoubtedly his most timely film.

“One Battle After Another” might make you chuckle, it might make you cry, it might make you seethe, but it’s gonna make you feel something. It’s about power, about identity and about that sense of feeling overwhelmed and alone amid madness and seeking connection.  

Remember, time doesn’t exist, yet it controls us anyway.

No, seriously, remember that exact wording. Your future may depend on it.