DIGGER
FOUR STARS A billionaire businessman has caused a chain of climate catastrophes. Now he's trying to save humanity, and maybe make a buck or two along the way.
COMEDY DRAMA US English #DIGGERMOVIE Starring Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed
Climate change has provided fertile ground for cinematic satire, from the suburban absurdities of DOWNSIZING to the apocalyptic finger-pointing of DON’T LOOK UP! Alejandro González Iñárritu joins that lineage with a considerably bigger shovel, digging into the political and corporate follies that threaten to bury us all.
DIGGER immediately recalls DR STRANGELOVE with its gallery of political grotesques, men of enormous power and profoundly questionable judgement, all blithely contemplating how to manage the end of the world. The result is a film of considerable ambition, extraordinary craftsmanship and an almost indecent amount of fun.
Tom Cruise is Digger Rockwell, an oil billionaire whose talent for making money is matched only by his capacity for making a mess. When an environmental catastrophe threatens to spiral into international disaster, Digger sets about saving the world, protecting his reputation and, ideally, emerge considerably richer. His priorities are admirably consistent, if not entirely reassuring.
As the consequences of his actions begin cascading, the corridors of political power fill with assorted rogues, each bringing their own particular brand of delusion to the impending catastrophe. In the middle of the chaos is The Scientist (Riz Ahmed) who can barely be heard above the din. Echoes of Kubrick are unmistakable though Iñárritu has ambitions that extend well beyond a contemporary variation on his masterpiece.
The film’s narrative framework is one of its great pleasures, a remarkably audacious conceit that gradually reveals itself without ever sacrificing the pleasure of discovery. Iñárritu plays with the boundaries of the story, its theatricality and its own cinematic artifice, scattering meta references like kibble for Digger’s ancient cat. There are echoes of BIRDMAN in this playful interrogation of performance although the scope is on a much more extravagant scale (which is saying something).
And what a production it is. With the visual precision and technical bravura of a filmmaker who knows exactly how to fill a very large canvas, Iñárritu brings considerable resources to bear on a story. The spectacle is not merely decorative, it’s full of heart and meaning as he amplifies absurdity to screaming point. And it’s funny, shockingly funny.
Cruise is excellent as the bombastic, extremely irritating and eternally opportunistic Digger. Beneath an elaborate transformation, he delights in a wonderfully comic character, recalling the delicious vulgarity of his Les Grossman in TROPIC THUNDER. Here he benefits from theatre’s twin-faced mask which opens up many possibilities for both character and performer, and Cruise exploits every inch of the situation. It’s a winning role and a winning performance. The supporting cast, including Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller and Jesse Plemons, is uniformly terrific.
There will be many ready to skewer the film’s progressive heart and its willingness to stray into polemic gives them ample ammunition. Yet despite its position and elaborate gamesmanship, DIGGER never loses sight of the absurdity at its centre: people most responsible for a disaster are often the least equipped to understand it, stop it or solve it. Which is to say, all of us. Iñárritu delivers a spectacularly mounted satire that is as mischievous and funny as it is technically assured.
Comedy this pitch black, this vicious, doesn't come along often. It takes some balls to put establishment feet to the fire - it's certainly riskier than jumping off a Norwegian mountain - but if anyone can survive the fall it's Cruise. Hopefully Iñárritu can as well. We need people willing to dig this deep, even when they leave an almighty mess.
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