There is no denying that Tom Cruise remains the last movie star. He’s a man who can command audiences to his films based solely on him being in them, unless that film happens to be The Mummy of course. But, given his last twenty years have been in fairly safe action films punctuated by the odd calculated risk –though nothing that might damage his standing as President of Movies–it’s hard to predict that he would turn to something like Digger.
For the most part, Cruise, after a very public meltdown due to his Katie Holmes / anti-medication press tour for War of the Worlds, has been reluctant to address politics or anything that might damage the brand of Tom Cruise. With that in mind, Alejandro G. Iñarritu’s political satire seems at odds with Cruise’s well-cultivated persona.
As Digger Rockwell, Cruise is borderline Les Grossman from Tropic Thunder again. He’s got bad hair, a fat suit, and a thick southern drawl. The film sees Digger’s oil-drilling plans go up in flames when a glacier cracks off and heads for Europe, giving him days to try and stop it while the US government attempts to control the narrative.
It’s very hard to discuss this film given there are developments that need to be kept a secret, but needless to say Iñarritu makes a narrative choice about twenty minutes in that will either delight audiences or turn them off. It’s a bold move, and one that doesn’t always pay off; instead, it makes the film lose its dramatic weight and turn into something that keeps taking its foot off the gas every time it looks like it’s getting somewhere.
That’s not to say that the film doesn’t have moments that are funny. It’s a funny film, just not as funny as it thinks it is. Its satire is very broad. Cruise is a caricature of old-money oil tycoons, the types of which only exist now in reruns of Dallas and episodes of The Simpsons. John Goodman’s President isn’t even interesting enough to be seen as a Trump analogue: he’s a screaming madman with anal cancer, which isn’t as funny as the film thinks it is. Moreover, the choice to give every single actor fake teeth doesn’t help you from staring at their mouths when they bellow their dialogue.
The most fascinating thing about this film is that it even exists given that Warner Bros., in its current era, seems so averse to risk that it would throw three IP-driven films away and yet would chuck a ton of money (Cruise doesn’t come cheap) at a film with very limited appeal. This has even less of a built-in audience than Don’t Look Up, to which it feels like a brother film.
It’s not so much that the film is a complete misfire, but it’s very much preaching to a choir that aren’t so much in agreement but have drunk so much Kool-Aid they’ve been dead for weeks. It’s not going to convince anyone new of its ideas, and the presentation is so arch that it might alienate the few open-minded people that stick around for its bigger moments.
If this is to usher in a new era of Tom Cruise proper acting movies, this is easily the strangest choice he’s made since 2012’s Rock of Ages and one that is even less likely to pay off. But it shows that there might still be something in Mr President of Movies himself that wants to surprise audiences.
Digger is in cinemas from 2 October.
