Digger Review: A Ham-Fisted Satire That Plays It Safe
Tom Cruise tries to stretch himself in Alejandro G. Iñárritu's muddled message movie
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In 1964, director Stanley Kubrick co-wrote and directed Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a sharp and hilarious critique of American politics, released just two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Since then, numerous directors have attempted to make their own versions of Dr. Strangelove, marrying humor with political commentary to mixed results. Alejandro G. Iñárritu's latest film, Digger, is one such example.
Digger is certainly a large and ambitious film, with a below the line crew that makes everything look sumptuous. It's a movie that feels big, enhanced by seeing it on the biggest screen possible. Staring in awe at the fabulous set pieces can often distract you from the story itself, which plays it far too safe in its themes. The satire here is on the nose, so much so that the characters literally take time out to explain it. It commits the greatest sin of a satirical comedy: the satire is never barbarous enough and the comedy isn't as funny as it should be. That being said, the cast certainly is willing to go for broke, with Riz Ahmed and John Goodman being the two who seem to understand the tone 100%.
Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise) is one of the wealthiest men in the world, finding generational success in the oil industry. When a large block of ice, nicknamed Judy, shears off one of Digger's oil rigs and starts heading towards land, he is tasked with getting ahead of things. Thus kicks off a series of absurdities involving the U.S. government and global politics.
Iñárritu's tend to fall into two camps: the straightforward or the theatrical. Digger falls in the latter, opening with a proscenium arch and a curtain rising. From there, the movie becomes a very stage-bound presentation wherein characters move from big set piece to big set piece to monologue for a time before moving on. It's a movie where people have a lot to say, but is the audience actually processing it? Is this a movie with a plot or just a film where a lot of things happen? It definitely leans towards the latter.
After going through Digger's expansive estate – Dennis Gassner's production design is epic and perfectly shown through Emmanuel Lubezki's camera – we meet the man as he's trying to convince his dying cat (a clear animatronic) to eat. Digger is loud and boisterous, juggling a cat (the closest thing to something he cares about) and the state of his company, even if that really means handing off what he can to his maid. Lubezki's cinematography is utterly astounding, with certain sequences that seem to exist purely to look fantastic. An endless mirror shot of Digger and surrounded by deer horns is particularly gorgeous. It's a shame though that these sequences are all incredibly washed out, with a mute color palette as to make everything different levels of beige.
Digger is told that his site in Greenland – where 90,000 barrels of oil are coming out – has suffered from an explosion due to methane emissions. From there the extent of the plot is revealed: Judy is hurtling towards Europe and Digger needs to do something. What that is seems haphazard and ill-defined. The movie's mid-act twist hopes to dispel any critiques that might exist about the film's lack of plot. But what results is a movie that plays it completely safe.
The commentary about America's current government is low-hanging fruit, mostly presented through John Goodman's decrepit President Compson, whose only humor is derived from him literally having "cancer of the asshole." This is far from the likes of The Death of Stalin, but more so a cautionary tale about the absurdity of our current landscape and where it's going to take us. However, it's hard to find anything funny about this current timeline, and it doesn't help that the jokes are the aforementioned ass cancer and just a bunch of men joking about how there's no women in their spaces.
Real life is currently so absurd that it doesn't necessarily need satirizing. At one point, Jesse Plemons's character Kenny talks about how people need laughter in order to deal with trauma – a point made far better in 1941's Sullivan's Travels but with where the overall story goes it's difficult to understand what they're mean to laugh at in their current situation. The problem is that the script doesn't seem to believe its audience is capable of understand its Big Themes, and thus resorts to a twist framing device and a character who lays out what the point of everything is. A great satire works on the strength of its bizarre inanity. The audience should see reality in a hyper-exaggerated state that looks like it could theoretically happen. Here, we already know it's happening. There's nothing exaggerated about it, and yet the movie seems to look down its nose at the viewer and say, "You clearly don't understand."
Much hay has been made about Tom Cruise's physical transformation. The majority of it is prosthetic padding and some facial tweaks. One never doubts it's Cruise. It's certainly nice seeing him in action mode, but this is far from a revelatory performance. His Digger has an accent and is hammy. A side plot seems him attempt to showcase some vulnerability but because the plot line never goes anywhere Cruise never has to dive into the depths of emotion. It's a flamboyant performance but far from some of Cruise's best work. (The same can be said of Sandra Huller who is there for a smattering of scenes to zero effect.)
Cruise's big moment is in front of a contingent of European political players that eventually devolves into chaos as Digger riles everyone up. It's a moment for Cruise to get shout-y and overwrought, but there's nothing particularly interesting in what it's saying. As he lays out, governments like to thumb their noses at the U.S. while continuing to engage with them. It gives real Miranda Priestley "florals" energy.
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The one who walks away with the movie is Riz Ahmed as Ganesh, one of Digger's environmental managers. Ahmed seems to understand where the tonal boundary is with his character, who is pretty much the befuddled harbinger. He is the one who breaks down how bad things are, and there is a moment where he's meant to have a powerful speech in front of some bigwigs, only for it to be presented on TV, the sound low. But Ahmed, whether through a look or a line reading, makes you take notice of him. A simple scene of him opening his jacket to show that the coffee pot has spewed all over him is far funnier than scenes of Digger posturing. Later, when Ganesh decides to get drunk, it's simultaneously endearing and humorous.
There's no doubt Digger is a big, ambitious film. Every frame is a painting. Every scene a moment to look at the cinematography, the costuming, and the production design and go "This is what cinema looks like." The script, though, is low-level, a satire that seems filtered through the poppy absurdity of Wes Anderson with a loose plot that can't seem to find its stride. Ahmed and John Goodman do what they can, while Cruise unfortunately isn't given enough meaty material to rise above the hamminess of the role. The movie's a big swing that doesn't hit the ball, but it's worth appreciating how it tries.
Grade: D+
Digger is in theaters Friday.
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