One has to appreciate the huge swing four-time Oscar winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu and his Oscarless star Tom Cruise took with their climate crisis and culture satire “Digger.” But it’s still a swing and an epic miss.
The director of “Birdman, or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance” and four other credited writers try to make sense of their send-up of a larger-than-life eco-villain, the poisonous yet comical guilt religion bears in conservative politics and the role of “art” in telling and selling “the story” that we need to believe in for nothing to get done, or for great things to be achieved.
Every story has to have a villain, and art’s role — even in catastrophes — is to make us look in the mirror when we see him or her.
Cruise shows his age and a notable paunch as “Digger” Rockwell, a third generation Texas oilman and thus the grandson of the patriarch who found oil with “a ten cent shovel,” which hangs over a mantle in Digger’s production-designed-to-death mansion.
We piece together bits about his life through the course of the film — his instincts, his bullying, control-freak style, the bluster that comes with trying to pose as the Smartest Guy in the Room even when dealing with one’s problematic “experts.”
Those are the folks telling him his drilling “in a national park” in Greenland was ill-advised and remains so even after he’s struck oil. Because the planet’s oceans are warming and methane gas is bubbling to the surface all over, especially in the Arctic.
Backroom deals with his pal, the ailing President (John Goodman) and stirring up doubt about half a century of climate science keep Digger going — a “drill, baby, drill” fanatic with a wife as an afterthought and a daughter doing Third World non-profit work of some sort.
His increasingly corpse-like cat is his boon companion, and he’s not shy about flying in “the world’s foremost feline health expert” to keep Maggie alive for even a day or two longer. Not if the doc gives him bad news, though.
“Between two weeks…and five minutes” is his prognosis.
Digger’s got his virtues of the oil business patter down pat. Buzzwords like “jobs” that he’s creating, “freedom” from cold, freedom of movement, with value for stockholders a part of that bargain. As to the downside? Well, “God” put this oil on Earth for us is a good enough comeback for doubting rubes.
When the worst case happens and a massive chunk of ice shelf cracks off, Mr. Snakeskin Boots and Bolo tie ,”I know what I’m doin'” changes his tune.
“Mister President, there was just no WAY t’see it comin’….out of the BLUE,” etc.
The vulgarian in the White House, surrounded by a company of old white men (and one young white Christian nationalist preacher), knows that Digger knew and has known for years that the oil barron was racing against time to destroy the climate before the money to pay him for destroying it ran out.
All that’s left is “involuntary manslaughter charges on a massive scale” as Europe cannot be “panicked” by warning of the iceberg-driven tsunami to come.
There are clever touches to the production and design of all this, and the first arresting bit of direction is showing the “Situation Room” comically, graphically reacting to the mass carnage that Big Oil wreaks on coastal Europe.
We don’t see the havoc ourselves. Not until later, anyway.
The plot dives headfirst into the Big Speech about what hypocrites we all are for bitching about oil, then lurches into a play about this calamity and the one man most responsible for it.
Cruise and Riz Ahmed — playing a government scientist Digger recruited to work for him and whose warnings were met with deaf ears and then silenced when he changed jobs — give marvelously over the top and afraid to go over-the-top performances.
Digger Rockwell is a 60something variation on Cruise’s cocksure men’s movement hustler in “Magnolia” with a big helping of his volcanically overbearing studio chief in “Tropic Thunder.” But potbelly and butt-crack shots aside, the guy is never charming enough to be magnetic, never funny enough to be a caricature.
Jesse Plemons, Sophie Wilde and Emma D’Arcy are all part of the “Fossil Fools” stage production put on as the planet drowns.
Sandra Hüller plays Digger’s sister, a family rival with a Germanic accent. Michael Stuhlbarg is the ineffectual vice president made a fall guy looking to pass that title on to someone else And you might recognize character actor Burn Gorman as one of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Sit-Room scenes, reprising that role for their staged restaging.
If you think this review has coherence problems, wait until you see the movie. Which no one will, because “Digger” isn’t as funny or as obvious as “Don’t Look Up,” and manages to be a bummer on several levels.
So one can appreciate the attempt, even if at some point we wonder if we’re seeing a version of our director and co-writer every time this cynical, self-destructive superrich fool blurts out “I know what I’m doing,” when it’s obvious he doesn’t. Not here, anyway.
Rating: R, profanity
Cast: Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Sophie Wilde, Jesse Plemons, Emma D’Arcy, Michael Stuhlbarg and Burn Gorman.
Credits: Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, scripted by Sabrina Berman, Jez Butterworth, Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone and Alejandro G. Iñárritu. A Warner Bros. release.
Running time: 2:09
