The last time Tom Cruise, Hollywood’s Last Movie Star, collaborated with a bona fide auteur was in 2004: the director was Michael Mann, and the film was a love letter to nighttime Los Angeles, Collateral. Coincidentally, it’s also the last time Cruise starred as a villain. Twenty-two years later, with more makeup applied than when Tropic Thunder’s Les Grossman danced into future memes, Digger has finally arrived. The latest film from four-time Oscar winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu (The Revenant) is a masterpiece.
Writing this after the film has already screened for critics and opened to most audiences, it’s clear Digger won’t be Cruise’s next blockbuster triumph, having earned mixed reviews and the star’s lowest opening weekend total since 1985’s Legend. And yet… from where this critic sits, the world may have gone as mad as the one in the film’s dystopian, depressed future. Time will tell, but to cut to the chase: with a ten-cent shovel in hand, this pairing of star and director has struck creative gold. Digger is the rare film which wisely uses the artifice of art to unearth truth about humanity in the most maximalist way ever committed to IMAX screens.
Alongside the director and star are a host of A-list talent in front and behind the camera: acting Oscar nominees Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, and Jesse Plemons, along with the always welcome John Goodman and Michael Stuhlbarg. Iñárritu directed from a screenplay he wrote himself, along with fellow Oscar winners Alexander Dinelaris & Nicolás Giacobone, and Sabina Herman; with a story by Berman & Iñárritu and Jez Butterworth. Also on board: award-winning costume designer Jacqueline West (Dune) and Oscar nominee Dennis Gasser (Blade Runner 2049). Apparently, $160 million buys a lot of incredibly talented people.
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The plot, to the extent that I can describe it with no spoilers: When the most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity’s savior, he must also admit to himself – and everyone else – that he’s the reason for Earth’s world-ending crisis.
After spending most of the new century proving to the world he’s more prone to physical risks than any sane individual in their 50s or 60s, the beloved actor takes a creative risk playing oil baron aka no friend of the environment Digger Rockwell. Even if the film were so-so (it’s not), Cruise’s gumption for giving 1000% would be worth the price of admission. Rarely has the actor’s commitment to entertain audiences around the globe faltered… looking at you, Jack Reacher sequel and The Mummy.
As a film, Digger is akin to the underrated Coen Bros. film The Hudsucker Proxy. In that story, do-gooder inventor Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins) was a patsy for 50s corporate greed. Digger Rockwell is no dummy, though; he might be the smartest person in the room. The film’s centerpiece is a ten-minute monologue Cruise delivers to an angry mob. As Jimmy Stewart did in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Digger must justify the decisions that led to a 400-mile-wide glacier en route to Norway. But instead of espousing the merits of America and democracy, Digger’s speech is more the kind of self-serving confidence Jack Nicholson’s five-star general retorted to a much younger Cruise three decades ago in A Few Good Men. In essence, the rest of us simply can’t handle the truth.
Like Hudsucker, the costumes and production design are exquisite in every frame. When I described the film earlier as “maximalism,” I wasn’t kidding. An early moment shows Cruise looking into mirrors as layers of old-age makeup, a big gut, and wisps of stark grey hair stare back at him. The mirrors are framed by a seemingly endless supply of deer antlers that recede into the background like a visual puzzle. No matter what is in frame, a dying cat, a plate of tuna on a private jet, even a dying plant… all of it is larger than life while the subjects themselves are near death. Visually, it’s a can’t-look-away vibe. And it all feels 100% fake. Intentionally.
The other people in those rooms are often a Greek chorus of strong supporting character actors, each with their own brand of overconfidence. Goodman knows exactly how big to play a dying U.S. president determined to take the rest of the country down with him. Others like Sandra Hüller as Digger’s half-sister or Jesse Plemons as an entertainment producer fit right in too. Riz Ahmed, the film’s MVP, plays Digger’s biggest detractor. Another strong performance, but I’m cautious about giving away whose role it is: Sophie Wilde (Talk to Me). Her prominence is more last-act important, so the less said, the better.
I’ve been up and down Iñárritu in the past. Both 21 Grams and Babel failed to hold my attention while I adored Birdman. My main takeaway is I tend to appreciate his form of, well, “pretentious” much better with jokes. Digger has more than his ten-gallon hat. I’m quite pleased, but I also get how subjective laughter can be. While watching the film last Sunday night on an IMAX screen, I was relieved by how much the (admittedly not full) audience laughed. Yet, as I walked out and the credits rolled, two men in front of me complained that it was the worst film they’d seen in years. Digger Rockwell wouldn’t have it any other way.
Digger is now playing in theaters and IMAX.
