Digger

Digger is going to be unequivocally the most polarizing movie of the year. Some people will walk out thinking it’s a new work of genius, filled with innovative ambition and gonzo chutzpah. Others will find it a bombastic, self-indulgent film from start to finish, with flourishes of madness that might be unique.

Me? I can see both sides, but I’m going to defend the indefensible for exactly those same reasons.

Tom Cruise gives his most energetic, unleashed performance since Magnolia and his extended cameo in Tropic Thunder. Here, he plays Digger Rockwell, an oil tycoon hell-bent on extracting oil from both Alaska and Greenland despite warnings saying he should not do so due to methane problems. When an explosion causes a gigantic ice shelf to head towards Europe, Digger is left responsible.

Digger has to convince President Compson (John Goodman) that the shelf will drift away and melt, but Mother Nature has other plans as European cities get caught in deadly flooding. Goodman’s Compson can’t help but be compared to a certain timely President in terms of his looks and demeanor, but Goodman isn’t necessarily delivering a parody. Rather, it’s a performance that matches the absurdity of the material.

Riz Ahmed co-stars as Digger’s scientist and an environmental advisor who tries to be the voice of reason behind it all, but like many characters of this sort, his words of wisdom are deliberately ignored until the circumstances grow increasingly worse.

Cruise turns the dial up to 11 with his portrayal of Digger, especially during a summit of world leaders where he’s being blamed for the global catastrophe. Cruise threatens to chew the scenery in nearly every scene he’s in, and that works both ways. His energy and enthusiasm, like Goodman’s, match the absurdity, but after a while we wonder if he’ll ever dial back. Not to mention the scenes involving him and his cat Maggie are equally absurd, and I’ll leave it at that.

Director/cowriter Alejandro G. Iñárritu, who made Birdman and The Revenant, certainly has ambition and audacity to spare. There are elements of Dr. Strangelove that are blatantly obvious, as it deals with an international crisis and uses satire as a cinematic weapon. Some audiences might be able to embrace and comprehend what Iñárritu is going for with the satire, while others will surely be baffled.

One element in the structure of Digger that makes it unique is something I don’t want to mention, but I think the movie cheats by giving itself away in its first act and spoiling its sense of mystery for the rest of the film. Had it remained mysterious about what its true intent is, I would have appreciated it more.

As it stands, Digger won’t work for everyone, but its radical, kamikaze style of filmmaking is worth talking about, for better or worse. It doesn’t always strike gold, but then again, who knows if it’s trying to?