The latest feature from a director with no less than four Oscars under his belt should create some excitement. And the new pitch-black satire from Birdman’s Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu , Digger, is getting plenty of attention, but it’s little to do with the man at the helm. The focus is on its lead actor, Tom Cruise, who, despite four Oscar nods, has yet to bag one of those little gold statuettes. More significantly, it’s his return to dramatic acting after a near-continuous 20 years of actioners, and expectations are high.

The wildly differing early reactions to the film as a whole have already hit the headlines, ranging from “messy” to “brilliant” and everything in between, although Cruise himself comes in for more consistent praise. His Digger Rockwell is a billionaire oil tycoon and the most powerful man in the world. A drilling programme in Greenland has been going gangbusters until it triggers a massive ecological disaster. One of the rigs explodes, and the result is a catastrophic tsunami which devastates Europe and raises the possibility of a global ecological collapse.

Digger is also a long-term ally of the President (John Goodman, 10 Cloverfield Lane) who decides that, because his friend caused the situation, he should put things right, so the ageing tycoon embarks on a frantic mission to get the planet back to something approaching normal. To the masses, it looks like he’s trying to prove he’s the saviour of the world but, in reality, his plan is all about deflecting blame and keeping political pressure to the bare minimum.

Digger is big – epic, even – and bold, following Inarritu’s usual challenging style, one that allows him to experiment and push boundaries. He’s never shy of causing controversy, and this time is no different, but there’s a weakness in his thinking. In a present-day world where absurdity rules, the targets are obvious, from Digger’s reference to the “gangster government” and his own parallels with the current occupant of the White House to the global, corporate greed behind the mismanagement of the environment. They’re so familiar that it’s hard to give the satire enough bite to make it meaningful, so the result has a decidedly soft centre.

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We are, however, rewarded with the long-overdue reminder that Cruise is an impressive dramatic actor – think Magnolia and Born On The Fourth of July – and no slouch when it comes to comedy. This is a showy role, and he attacks it ferociously: Digger is an unpleasant bully who is only interested in money and a master of manipulation. His solution to the ecological disaster and its consequences is to ban a slew of words so the situation sounds more palatable to the ordinary people looking destruction in the face. He’s not averse to the truth, though, as long as it’s a truth he can mould to fit his argument.

But he needs a counterbalance, a voice of calm, somebody who isn’t afraid of telling the truth as it really is, and that comes from a quieter but equally weighty performance from Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal, 2019) as his right-hand man. Digger wouldn’t be Digger without him. Goodman is also on cracking form as the caricature President, going over the top in a way that harks back to Dr Strangelove. The echoes of Stanley Kubrick’s nuclear satire are never far away from the action, and you have to give Inarritu credit for aiming high, even if it doesn’t wholly come off.

Cruise’s chances of getting his hands on an Oscar at long last are already under the microscope. Only time will tell how that works out. As a whole, Digger has enough to keep a firm grip on the audience’s collective attention, but it isn’t Iñárritu at his best. There are times when the film is simply hard to follow and you long for a more streamlined narrative, yet the moments when it doesn’t work make you realise how impressive some of the good scenes really are. If only there were more of them.

★★★

In cinemas from October 2nd / Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons, Michael Stuhlbarg / Dir: Alejandro G. Iñárritu / Warner Brothers /15

About the Author

Freda Cooper

Editor

Freda is a Senior Writer at The People's Movies. A lifelong movie fan and a film critic for over ten years, Freda’s natural habitat is the darkened rooms frequented by fellow cineastes. She can also be found asking questions of some of the biggest names in the business – from Cate Blanchett to Daniel Craig or Mike Leigh to Pete Docter – or crafting reviews for a number of sites and publications, including The People’s Movies. And listeners to BBC Local Radio can catch her views on the latest releases. She always – and probably always will – cite The Third Man as her favourite film of all time. Her top ten? That’s a moveable feast …..

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