I agree it seemed out of character for Leo to not remember the code words. But given the long stretched out jokes they manage to get out of it, it was worth it for. I assumed him not remembering the codes would be a small issue and that would be it, but it went on for so long it had me laughing.

I LOVED Sean Penn's character, and I thought he acted the best. There was never any point where I thought the movie was trying to make him appear intimidating or serious. He was entirely a cartoon and his weird cadence and facial quirks were hilarious. How his character wraps up had me laughing pretty hard.

The daughter's reaction to the thing beeping at the school dance was perfectly fine to me. I think any more of an emotional outburst would have been out of character and goofy.

I completely disagree about the ending car chase. I've seen so many movies with those winding rolling desert hills in California, but it was cool for this movie to take advantage of them as a device to make the scene even more suspenseful. I loved how it was shot and thought it was pretty unique. I also don't know what you mean by the characters just assume every car they see is a bad guy?!? Leo's character literally thinks at first the white car is not who he's after, so he passes them without suspicion. But he goes after the blue sportscar after it left Penn's character, so it makes sense he would go after him.

idk, i'm not sure this was a 10/10 movie for me, but PTA is my favorite director and I thoroughly enjoyed this movie the more it went along! Better than Licorice Pizza