The centerpiece sequence of Digger is a simultaneously rousing and galvanizing speech, delivered by the eponymous oilman, in which he lays out his view of a world upended by manmade climate change and the greed of unfathomably rich humans. In his view, no one actually wants to solve the various crises—borne of the climate or artificial intelligence or anything else that might pose a slightly larger problem than humans alone could address—because, without those problems, there would be nothing about which to be an activist anymore. It’s a reasonable, if severely limited, point, but then, the speech veers toward exhausted, rambling nonsense, and the whole movie, co-written and directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, is sort of like that.
In other words, it begins with a clear-enough message, as Tom Cruise’s Digger Rockwell directly faces a catastrophe of his own making and sees no reason why it is he who should intervene if it might mean the end of everything he’s ever achieved in life. He cares far more about the health of his cat, which has just recently turned 30 years old and is described at one point as smelling like a certain type of person’s buttocks, than he does about the various species that might face extinction very soon. He certainly cares more about the tangible investments he has made in oil-drilling than, say, an explosion that almost certainly kills a few dozen men or a miles-wide ice shelf moving rapidly toward the United States from Russia.
Iñárritu—who also co-wrote the screenplay with Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone and Sabina Berman—might be saying a lot of obvious things with just these characteristics of his protagonist, but at least they’re clear-minded. They also show up in the supporting cast, which includes an ailing and half-senile President of the United States (John Goodman), the neurotic and paranoid leading science expert Dr. Ganesh (Riz Ahmed), a Vice President (Michael Stuhlbarg) who is sort of a wimp, and some generals and advisers (Robert John Burke and Burn Gorman play the most important of these) who are here to give the President only the type of advice he wants to hear, no matter how dissonant and convoluted and paradoxical it is. The answer, for these old and broken-down men, is always bombing or exploding something or declaring war with some other superpower, and Digger’s just here to play both sides of the issue for his own gain.
If this sounds like a whole lot of preaching to the choir, well, that’s what it comes across as being in practice, too. The politics here are naïve by nature, although one probably shouldn’t be expecting too much from a movie like this one in that regard. That brings us back to the speech, which is big and theatrical and making an obvious point, before going off the deep end entirely, as Digger, out of breath from this one paralyzing moment of activism, practically collapses in the next room while random phrases keep expelling themselves from his mouth.
If Iñárritu has made something of a polemical cautionary tale, he’s also primarily made a showcase for Cruise, appearing here under a layer and a half of vaguely convincing makeup to look like a man a couple decades his senior. It’s a decently forceful performance, and that ends up working on two levels because of what the filmmakers are up to with this self-reflexive story about humans facing crises. On one level, it’s this more immediate tale, with Digger tasked by the President to fix the monstrosity of his mistakes by any means necessary (there are some Kubrickian shades to this side of the movie, of course, although even to be more specific about them would be to place this movie in company it does not deserve).
On a deeper level, well, there’s hardly an actually deeper level: Without giving away too much, we receive a specific explanation for Cruise’s appearance, as well as a reminder that all of this political huffing and puffing is just theater to those who have no genuine interest in actively pursuing justice of any kind. Maybe that’s kind of a funny explanation, but then, the movie itself wonders whether it’s being funny or serious about the problems facing humanity. The involvement of a trio of characters here, played by Sophie Wilde, Emma D’Arcy and Jesse Plemons, is at the service of an even broader satirical idea, which the movie is far too toothless to explore in any real fashion.
It’s all a lot of huffing and puffing in an even hollower sense than its presentational put-on, and while that certainly means that there’s a lot to ponder in Digger, one leaves wishing we could ponder it with fewer sighs of exasperation along the way. This is the satire of a pulling-punches variety.
Rating: *½ (out of ****)
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