Alejandro González Iñárritu’s latest film, Digger, was always likely to be an event given the director’s Oscar-winning pedigree, but a Guardian review finds the end result disappointing. The reviewer calls the picture an exasperatingly shallow and laborious satire that ultimately feels self-congratulatory, even as it attempts a sweeping critique of ecological recklessness.
The story centres on an ageing Texan oil tycoon nicknamed Digger Rockwell, portrayed by Tom Cruise under prosthetics that give him a balding, paunchy appearance. The character is shown in intimate, often absurd domestic detail — from tending an incontinent old cat to fielding panicked reports from a drilling station in the frozen Arctic — after his corporate actions set off a wider environmental calamity.
Cruise’s performance is described as boisterous and showy, borrowing mannerisms such as a good-ol'-boy twang and a Stetson that recall earlier cinematic cowboy imagery. However, the review argues that even a cast of capable actors rarely finds a fully convincing register in the film, producing what it calls very good actors in not very good performances.
Where the film is credited with success is in its visual ambitions. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and production designer Dennis Gassner are singled out for conjuring dreamlike and sometimes disturbing images that bulge off the screen. Those sequences provide some of the few genuinely memorable moments, and the reviewer suggests they are the chief source of the movie's value.
The review also notes that Digger carries a theatrical trick up its sleeve, but contends that the device does little to redeem the work as a whole. Despite isolated pleasures and striking design, the critic judges the film to be among the most disappointing of the year, a satire whose message and execution do not fully cohere.