Obnoxious, audacious, disastrous, subversive: All of these words will be thrown at the feet of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s latest film, Digger. And they’re all true, but that is just scraping the tip of the proverbial melting iceberg. Underneath the surface lies a thoughtful, if not still obnoxious, satire of the medium itself. Knee-jerk reactions settle to reveal a truth; there’s more to Digger than meets the eye.
Tom Cruise stars as the titular Digger Rockwell, an oil baron with a global catastrophe of his own making that he must race to stop in order to save the lives of millions and, more importantly, his own reputation. After jumping out of or flying airplanes for the better part of his 21st century career, Cruise leaps into his riskiest role yet, caked in prosthetics and with a thick Texan accent. John Goodman, as the President, and Riz Ahmed, a weary climate scientist, work alongside Digger. The larger ensemble includes Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons, Emma D’Arcy, and more great performers giving their all to this disaster-comedy.
‘Digger’ Has Many Tricks Up Its Sleeve, For Better or Worse
If you saw the trailers, you might think you know what Digger is going to be. You expect a preachy satire about climate change with big actors doing all they can to pat themselves on the back, and encourage the audience to do so, over being hip to the issues of the times. Maybe it even wraps up in a tidy bow, with the movie offering platitudes about unity and hope for the future. But Digger Rockwell is not here to beat you over the head with a shovel until you congratulate Cruise and Co. for making a movie that acknowledges what you already believed about the climate crisis.
Instead, Iñárritu lays his cards on the table in a rug pull that challenges the characters, the movie, and the audience directly. The movie interrogates its own futility and abruptly shifts into something much more provocative. To expand on the greater context of Digger is to reveal more than the movie wants you to know, which makes any substantive review of the film difficult. Iñárritu’s continual back-and-forth between the parallel tracks this movie races down can be frustrating. But the chaos is unresolved in a satisfying way, with a sobering final sequence that makes the whole movie click.
At its best, the movie interrogates the subject of art itself, how art responds to crisis or trauma, whether art alone can change the world, and most importantly, who is controlling the narrative? The film handles these themes in a messy way. Digger is so contradictory that the movie occasionally tilts into making poor choices on purpose. And that does not mean Digger is immune to criticism. But Iñárritu and Cruise seem to have a strong hold on what that criticism might be. Whether this ambitious attempt to satirize one’s own work as it is presented is successful; that is entirely up to the audience.
Tom Cruise Brings His A-Game With a Risky Performance in ‘Digger’
Regardless of how well the narrative ambition lands, Digger certainly has merits as far as craft is concerned. A sinister score and often desaturated color palette lend themselves to the off-kilter setting. Iñárritu makes bold choices structurally (some work better than others). The performances are intentionally big but not off-putting, especially once you understand the full scope of what Digger is doing.
Cruise puts on a showcase more effortful and entertaining than just about anything you will see this year, including a thunderous ten-minute monologue that is one of the film’s highlights. To see an A-list star, and one as tightly managed as Cruise no less, take a swing as wild as he does with Digger inspires a lot of confidence about the future of his career. Though Cruise has delivered great blockbusters this decade, his return to more ambitious roles like this should be celebrated, even if the movie won’t be a home run for everybody.
Parts of this movie may really turn you off. But it will be an experience unlike any other you have had in a theater this decade. So see for yourself. You may find it meaningful, you may find it exhausting, you will probably feel a bit of both. But nobody can walk away from Digger saying they didn’t try something interesting, and that is worth a lot.
8/10
