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Every now and then, a film comes along that leaves me completely stumped regarding whether or not I liked it, and I need to write my way through to figure it out. Alejandro G. Iñárritu's latest film, "Digger," is very much that kind of movie. Maybe by the time I finish writing this, I'll know whether or not I can recommend it to you.
It's a bit difficult to talk about "Digger" without spoilers, so please know that the plot offered here isn't the whole story. Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise) is an oil baron who faces a major problem when one of his oil expeditions in Greenland triggers a massive geological disaster. Along with his ecological advisor, Ganesh (Riz Ahmed), and President Compson (John Goodman), Digger has to figure out how to deliver the bad news to the Europeans whose homes have been destroyed.
The main story is pretty decent, if much less funny than it probably should be, and where the inevitable comparisons to "Dr. Strangelove" fall apart. But there is a moment before the second act that recontextualizes the entire movie, and your willingness to accept or reject that will likely determine your overall enjoyment of the film. I liked it as a concept, but it felt too disconnected from the overall story to work. I have ideas on how Iñárritu might have intended the two parts to work together, but am less convinced it was successful.
Cruise is magnificent in this, reminding us that he is not just an action hero, but a proper actor. Goodman has flashes of genius in this, though his characterization of a doddering, strong-man president is pretty hit or miss. Ahmed feels like he hits the tone of the movie the most dead-center, providing the moral center of the film, while still being one of the funniest characters in it. The biggest disappointments were Sandra Hüller and Jesse Plemons, who were both wonderful, but wildly underused.
The third act is where the movie starts to fall apart. Much of "Digger" is a very heavy-handed bit of satire about the climate crisis. I am unbothered by that, as most satire is not particularly subtle. It's in the moments when the film tries to be a bit more esoteric that it becomes unwieldy. With a run time of more than two hours, there are about 20 minutes at the end that could be cut without changing the message at all. I think it was trying to underline a discussion that Digger and Ganesh have earlier in the film about perception vs. reality, but it didn't add anything beyond what they already plainly stated.
As I reach the end of my review, I am still not entirely sure what I think about the movie. I certainly think its themes about climate, money and convenience are mostly well executed, if not always hitting the mark. At a time when climate denial is being propped up by people who already seem cartoonishly evil, I wish "Digger" had gone a little harder, to be honest. It's worth seeing for Cruise's performance, and for the commentary on how we treat the world we need to pass on to future generations. Or maybe we can just be like Digger and learn to stop worrying and love the oil.
Rating: 3/5
Alise Chaffins is a freelance and Tomatometer-approved film critic.