Digger and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros. Pictures
Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Boy howdy, is this a contentious one! I certainly wasn’t expecting the film to be so polarizing given the talent behind it, but this seems to have hit a lot of people the wrong way. I guess I should have seen it coming given how silly it was for the initial trailer to be about Tom Cruise’s career that also just so happens to end with a teaser for the movie, but I guess if you’re gonna go for the Oscar, you might as well go as big as possible. I’m certainly still looking forward to it, perhaps even more so now that it’s become such a huge miss with a lot of people! Will I be one of those who will find greatness in Tom Cruise’s latest attempt to prove he can do more than jump out of planes, or is this an absolute train wreck that can only happen at the highest levels of Hollywood talent and creative hubris? Let’s find out!!
As long as the world needs oil, there will be men like Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise); an oil baron with the world at his fingertips and the US President on speed dial. Now typically, a man with that kind of power is rarely put in difficult positions, but that all changes when the one thing he can’t control, Mother Nature, gives him and the rest of humanity a kick to the gonads as one of Digger’s extraction sites in Greenland explodes and releases an ice shelf that’s on a one-way path to Europe. Not exactly the best PR for an oil company, but Digger is not about to be buried in controversy when he still calls the shots and keeps the modern world spinning. Of course, it’s not going to be an easy game of 4-D chess as everyone, from his head of environmental safety (Riz Ahmed), to his sister with a Green Energy company (Sandra Hüller), and even the very cranky President of the United States (John Goodman) is breathing down his neck to either fix the problem or make it someone else’s. With the facts of the situation so overwhelmingly against him, can Digger steer the narrative away from his company’s failings and make himself the hero of this crisis? Just how much damage can be expected from this icey torpedo of death, and is there any hope of stopping this disaster before it’s too late? Is this something that can be fixed with a few folksy stories about his grand-dad, because Digger certainly has a lot of those!
I’m genuinely curious just how bad some of those reviews are for this movie because I need something to give me a shred of context as to why it’s so contentious. As far as I’m concerned, this is easily the best movie I’ve seen all year, and I’m just as surprised as you are. It’s certainly no indie darling or a masterclass of subtlety, but it’s a genuinely riotous comedy in an era where that’s become somewhat rare at the multiplex. The last time I laughed this hard at a movie was the transcendent Hundreds of Beavers, and while I wouldn’t quite put it on that level as far as gut busting hilarity, I couldn’t help but love every scene where one of several famous actors completely lost their mind and shouted absurd nonsense at the screen. It’s almost worrisome to me that I can’t even fathom what has split critics right down the middle. Even the rather large twist at the heart of the movie doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that would turn off those kinds of viewers. General audiences, perhaps, as it does take a while to truly reveal what its purpose is, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s what turns this movie from an uproarious comedy into something much deeper and with much more humanity than it comes across at first blush. Is it a masterpiece? Perhaps it falls just shy of it, especially compared to its most obvious influences such as Doctor Strangelove, but I had an absolute blast with this no matter how broad it’s satire is or how loudly its cast shouted their lines.
I get the sense that some people were turned off by just how strongly this movie leans into its over the top nature, and while I can understand why they may not care for these actors making fools of themselves, the film does ultimately prove itself to be something deeper to justify the absurdity of everything we see. Perhaps some saw the revelations less as an answer to the question and more of an excuse for its faults, and I’ll be frank; I was skeptical once it played its hand and had its big reveal. This is, of course, the giant elephant in the room that I wouldn’t want to spoil for anyone who still doesn’t know where this movie goes; it’s an enormous part of why the film worked for me and getting the full effect of it added a lot to its overall effect. All I’ll say is that there is a meta-textual element to the movie and leave it at that so that we can discuss it further. For me, it did completely derail the movie and I was genuinely convinced that I would hate the film for pulling the rug out from under us like that, but the thing is, the movie ends up justifying it completely and finds its strongest moments in this aspect of its story. Instead of distancing us from the events of the film, which often happens when we’re reaching for meta-narratives, it ends up entrenching us further into the story than before because what’s happening on screen still matters. It’s not just an opportunity for the film to show off how smart it is, though I guess I could see why some viewers would see it that way, but it’s there to say something about how we engage with media and stories in times of crisis like the one portrayed in the movie. It’s perhaps a bit passé to declare any movie with a hint of social relevance as a referendum of the Trump era, but I think this is one of the strongest examples of that; not necessarily because of how biting it is or how correct its opinions are, but because of its humanity; the sloppy and confused ways in which we try to navigate not just a world on the brink, but our own feelings on it. It’s the kind of catharsis that I didn’t realize I needed until I saw it on the screen, and while I can quibble about specific points of view or a few less than tonally sound moments, it never feels preachy or didactic; it’s just a simple sense of acknowledgement done in a beautifully crafted and genuinely funny story.
To go back to an earlier point, I do feel that this falls just short of being a masterpiece. The third act stretches on just a tiny bit too long for my taste, and there’s a subplot involved in the meta-textual aspect of the movie that I didn’t quite understand the purpose of. It’s not poorly executed and gives some dimension to that aspect of the movie, but it never feels necessary; more of a distraction from the film than an integral part of it. Perhaps a second viewing will solidify its purpose, but it definitely felt like the least interesting part of the movie and doesn’t even have much of a proper conclusion as far as I’m concerned. Still, if the worst thing about a movie is that the momentum drops a tiny bit here and there, then you’re already far ahead of almost everything else that’s come out this year.
Before bringing this review to a close, I decided to get a feel for what the critics have been saying about this, and I think the line that separates the lovers from the haters is whether you think the story of Digger, as portrayed in this movie, is fun and hilarious or irritatingly boisterous. If you can’t get into Digger’s story from the outset, Cruise’s over the top performances, Iñárritu’s bizarre cinematography, and the hyperbolic disaster at the heart of it, then no amount of self-reflective nuance in its meta-textual musings will overcome that. I suppose that means the trailers are a great barometer for the movie, simply because most of it is over the top, crassly written, and loudly blatant with its satire even before the twists and turns flip the entire thing on its head. I’m at least satisfied that I didn’t miss anything too obvious and am still happy to express my effuse praise of this movie even if it’s clearly not for everyone. Of course, maybe Warner Bros should have considered that before dumping nearly two-hundred million in its production, but if they had that kind of cash for that mediocre clown sequel, then at least this can feel like a balancing of the scales. If you’re gonna burn that kind of money, at least put it into something worth talking about!
