Synopsis: Digger Rockwell, an oil tycoon and the most powerful man in the world, races to prove he is humanity’s savior before the disaster he set off destroys everything.
Stars: Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, Emma D’Arcy, Sophie Wilde, Burn Gorman, Robert John Burke, Pip Torrens, Mercedes Hernández
Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu; screenplay by Iñárritu, Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone and Sabina Berman, story by Berman, Iñárritu and Jez Butterworth
Rated: R
Running Length: 129 min
Movie Review in Brief: Digger’s opening sensory overload nearly lost me, but a shift I won’t reveal gave the excess a purpose. Cruise’s dramatic commitment, a terrific ensemble, and sensational VistaVision photography make it worth staying to the end.
Digger Makes You Work for the Payoff
Before you get into a conversation about Digger, ask the other person whether they watched the whole thing. If they bailed during the opening stretch, you’re going to be discussing two very different experiences. I nearly decided this wasn’t a movie for me in the first twenty or thirty minutes, when Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Tom Cruise were throwing so much noise, grotesquerie, and self-importance at the screen that I wondered how long they expected me to keep swallowing it.
Then something happened that changed my response almost instantly, and I’m absolutely not telling you what it was. The film doesn’t become tame or suddenly stop being in your face. It acquires a shape that makes the earlier excess worth reconsidering. Give it time to show you what all that noise is for. That’s a request for patience, but it comes from somebody who needed convincing too.
He Broke the World and Wants a Thank You
Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning) is an oil tycoon with enough power to create a catastrophe and enough confidence to believe he should be celebrated for fixing it. The world surrounding him is a topsy-turvy arrangement of rich hot shots, political operators, and people who expect the rest of us to keep handling the menial work while they decide what survival ought to look like.
That’s the extent of the setup you need. The satire’s relationship to extreme wealth and environmental destruction is apparent without a lecture: a man who has profited from damage wants to control the story of the solution as well. His appetite for being regarded as humanity’s savior leaves very little room for humanity to get a word in.
Iñárritu, writing with Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone, and Sabina Berman, makes this a loud, unruly invitation. The opening asks a lot, and I wouldn’t blame anybody for finding the behavior exhausting. What kept me there was the sense that the film’s extraordinary design and performances had more behind them than a competition to see who could be most obnoxious.
There Is an Actor Under All That Makeup
On the surface, you might think you know what attracted Cruise to this. There’s an obvious opportunity to take the vulgar comic freedom of Tropic Thunder, add an absurd physical transformation, and run wild. That expectation only gets you part of the way. The more rewarding material asks for a level of performance I’ve wanted to see him return to since Magnolia, which should have won him an Oscar. I’d put him firmly in the Best Actor conversation for this performance, too.
Cruise gives the tycoon both physical and emotional force, and the second becomes more apparent as the film gives us a clearer understanding of what we’re seeing. The star who so often controls an action movie’s momentum places himself inside a director’s much stranger construction. It’s a welcome reminder that there’s an actor behind the daredevil machinery, and a very good one.
President Compson (John Goodman, Matinee) is a kooky live wire whose illness and instability make him a liability when the situation needs steadier hands. Ganesh (Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal) gets a terrific airplane scene that reminded me how dependably Ahmed can seize a moment without making it feel stolen from the larger film.
Emma Rockwell (Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall) could have used more to do, although I’m glad to have her in the mix. Sophie Wilde (Talk to Me) and Jesse Plemons (Bugonia) are especially effective at taking focus when the movie needs further clarity. Once the film’s direction comes into view, the cast’s ferocious work feels less like competing performances and more like people contributing to the same dangerous joke.
Welcome to the World His Ego Built
Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography and the production design by Dennis Gassner and Richard Johnson are sensational. Shot in VistaVision, the film has the visual scale to make the tycoon’s self-importance feel like something you could walk into and get lost inside. The moving camera recalls the restless confidence of Birdman, while the political lunacy places it within shouting distance of Dr. Strangelove.
One lecture-hall scene makes that visual argument particularly well. Rockwell delivers grand, self-aggrandizing remarks about his virility before an audience of bizarre figures interspersed with wig-wearing mannequins. The stone-colored clothing makes them seem almost to emerge from the structure around them. It’s ridiculous, expertly composed, and another point where the movie risks having viewers throw up their hands.
Jacqueline West’s costumes and the prosthetic work overseen by Kazu Hiro are part of that deliberate distortion. Stephen Mirrione and Conor O’Neill’s editing has to give the excess room without losing the path through it, while Cosmo Sheldrake provides the score. The film’s craft is never in question for me. Whether Iñárritu will turn that command into something more than a lavishly staged tantrum is the question that makes the later movement so satisfying.
Stay Seated and Let the Pieces Fall
The early overload is a real hurdle, and I still wanted more room for Hüller in that crowded ensemble. Once I got past the opening resistance, though, the VistaVision photography and the cast gave me plenty to hang onto, with Cruise finding much more in the role than the outlandish transformation initially promises.
I can describe the change in my response without describing the change in the story: pieces that seemed to be drifting begin fitting together, and the film’s finish gives the earlier disorder a purpose. Love it or hate it, this is Cruise’s most exciting dramatic swing in years. Digger is still divisive, still aggressive, and still capable of wearing you out, but it earned my attention all the way to the end. The clearest picture arrives after you’ve nearly given up trying to see it.
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