Digger

When the world's wealthiest man, an eccentric oil tycoon, creates a global environmental disaster by drilling in Greenland, he manically attempts to prove to the world that its savior is "Digger."

Laura's Review: C-

If the survivors of California's deadly Camp Fire would think a satire showing the inept complicity of Pacific Gas and Electric leading up to it was funny, this would be the movie for them. An elaborate misfire from cowriter (with Alexander Dinelaris & Nicolás Giacobone, and Sabina Berman)/director Alejandro G. Iñárritu ("Amores Perros," "The Revenant"), "Digger" features an entertainingly out there performance from Tom Cruise, but it all rests on gimmicky scaffolding that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Perhaps the film might have worked as a more straightforward satire, but it's impossible to break that down without getting into spoilers.

After a screenful of some foreboding looking bubbles rising through water, we meet Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise) awakening in the morning in a baronial bedroom bedecked with a crystal chandelier and taxidermy, a clearly artificial landscape outside its floor to ceiling windows (production designer Dennis Gassner and a team of art directors do outstanding work here). Digger reaches under the covers and pulls out a very decrepit (and also artificial looking) white cat which he adores to its detriment, the cat, said to be 30 years old, being kept alive by a specialized vet well beyond its apparent desire to keep on going.

After donning cowboy boots beneath his black silk pajamas, Digger takes an urgent call from his environmental safety engineer in Greenland, who informs him that a 5 foot crack in the ice surface there has expanded to 30 and that there is concern methane is leaking through. Digger is indignant, scoffing at any word that is not definitive. Minutes later his advisor Dr. Ganesh (Riz Ahmed) will relate that a massive explosion at that site has taken almost forty men, including the one Digger was just speaking with. Digger asks about the status of his rigs. But Ganesh has more bad news - an ice shelf five times the size of D.C. has broken loose and is heading towards Europe and if conditions are right, which they appear to be, will cause massive destruction and loss of life within three days. Emma Rockwell (Sandra Hüller) barges in next, lamenting that the situation is occurring just as her green energy company Verdant is about to go public.

The next thing we know, a Presidential briefing is being given in a conference room at Digger's estate (another marvel of art direction, its walls painted with oil rig murals in the style of Charles Sheeler). President Compson (John Goodman), his Vice President (Michael Stuhlbarg), General 'Bomb first' Fitzgerald (Robert John Burke, "BlacKkKlansman," looking eerily like Mike Pence) and many others debate what to do, the General wanting to blow it apart, Digger suggesting 'deploying the firewall,' in other words, censoring any words suggesting the oncoming disaster from social media. That's the tack they decide to take. After Ganesh lays out just what is coming to a global group of dignitaries, Digger goes on to tell the now incensed audience that Ganesh is telling the truth, but that they are all culpable because 'you want the freedom to bask in your unsustainable lives.'

Iñárritu's message couldn't be clearer, but his delivery system is distancing and makes little sense when all is said and done. There are echoes of Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York" here, although that was a *far* better film in its conception and execution. Cruise embraces his eccentric tycoon and it must be said his hair and make-up transformation, which includes an impressive - and exposed - pot belly, is amazingly realistic looking, but as another character he fades into the woodwork. John Goodman, whose President is given 'ass cancer' as a metaphor for what's happening to the world, takes things over the top, director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki using a fisheye effect for his close-ups to accentuate the grotesquerie. Ahmed is appropriately rattled as the film's cowed moral compass, but Hüller's side plot never really crystalizes, the actress' talents wasted. Sophie Wilde ("Babygirl") makes a mark in a role that cannot be described here while Jesse Plemons is a heroic apologist in a silly wig. Composer Cosmo Sheldrake imitates the sound of a calliope for his circus-like score.

"Digger" has the occasional moment, but the whole eventually just drags itself down. Ambitious? Maybe, but also perhaps a little too impressed with itself.

Warner Brothers releases "Digger" in theaters on 10/2/26.