"a film that will inevitably make people talk"

As soon as the film ended, I immediately found myself thinking about a creative way to write a review for Digger without spoiling the experience for the audience. So, in all honesty, this should be considered an exercise in restraint for a society used to finding every morsel of information on the internet with the tap of a finger.

The latest effort from Mexican director Alejandro Iñárritu, Digger is a dark satirical tragicomedy about how big oil companies are shamelessly ruling and destroying the world, one hole in the ice at a time.

Digger Rockwell is the classic over-the-top American oil tycoon who finds himself in a pickle when his company’s excessive drilling into the Arctic ice cap causes an ice floe many times the size of Manhattan to detach itself and float dangerously towards Europe.

The natural disaster is impossible to stop and will cause the worst humanitarian crisis known to mankind. But Digger makes himself both the cause and the solution to this enormous problem.

From a chauvinistic secret meeting with the President to decide whether nuking the iceberg is the right call, to a self-celebrating, self-absorbed and pompous monologue in front of the European committee, Digger becomes both evil and saviour incarnate, determined to “dig everyone out of this one.”

With Digger, the Mexican director has set himself a difficult challenge. It is impossible to praise Iñárritu’s work without spoiling the film. One thing is for certain, though: in my opinion, Digger is one of his best films.

His skill as a director in navigating the film’s complicated plot is impeccable. At first, the audience is left confused by what is happening on screen. Halfway through, however, every single piece of the puzzle starts coming together, and by the end, the cruel, realistic and extremely jarring message of the movie is crystal clear.

Iñárritu is extremely talented at using satire and over-the-top storytelling to drive a clear message home and make the audience reflect on it for days after watching the film.

And what better way to bring the most over-the-top actor imaginable into the story than to cast him as the main character?

Tom Cruise covered himself in a prosthetic suit to play Digger Rockwell. His performance sort of reminded me of that iconic interview with Oprah when he started jumping on her sofa. Digger simply cannot be played any other way.

Cruise definitely went above and beyond to become a caricature of the kind of powerful man who finds himself on the wrong side of history. Digger’s delusions and megalomania throughout the film become almost too much to bear. However, Cruise does an incredible job of changing his performance as the story progresses, following the plot almost as if it were a dance.

The whole cast works together seamlessly to bring Iñárritu’s project to the screen, making the story both poignant and relevant.

A special mention should always go to Jesse Plemons for being, yet again, excellent at his craft and showing everyone how effortless it can look when a truly great actor completely disappears into a character and morphs into them. His work always elevates whatever movie he is in, and it always appears to come so naturally to him.

Set in a not-so-distant but extremely bleak future, Digger is a film that will inevitably make people talk. It is a story made to wake our society up and remind us that Nature will always have the upper hand, and that money and power ultimately mean nothing when all we do is destroy the only home we have.