Watched this over the past 2 nights, via HBO.
I admit, after the first 20 minutes, I was not too happy with it and ready to bail. Glad I didn't though, as I realized this was as much farce / satire as anything, and despite what many audience reviews I've seen say, it's not purely a left wing political lean. The revolutionaries aren't exactly depicted in a positive light, despite the opening act that might make some think that. So you can kind of read into it whatever you bring, which to me makes it fairly brilliant. It kind of reminded me of a Catch 22 type story (or Dr. Strangelove, for another comparison) - I read the book in college and saw the movie at some point, and the sheer over the top absurdity of some of it seemed similar. The political violence has layers of consequences for all involved. It took me a bit but once I realized that, it very much changed my approach and point of view on the movie. But at the end, at least a bit of fundamental humanity sort of wins out.
The car chase was ... pretty interesting and visually different, at least. I'm actually not sure what to make of it from a plot standpoint though as there seemed to be a couple of cognitive leaps required to justify both the characters' and audience's perception of what was happening, so that may be a fair flaw to point out. (Perhaps something was edited out due to the expansive length, that would explain how they know it's a chase?)
The character names are sometimes quite colorful and descriptive, as is frequently done in farces. Lockjaw, Toejam, Perfidia (perfidy = betrayal of trust), Junglepussy, etc. I'm not familiar with the Thomas Pynchon source novel (Vineland) so can't say anything about how it compares.
At any rate, DiCaprio and Penn were terrific, as was del Toro in a smaller role.
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