Producers: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Mary Parent and Tom Cruise   Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu   Screenplay: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone and Sabina Berman   Cast: Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, Robert John Burke, Emma D’Arcy, Burn Gorman, Sophie Wilde, Stephen Wight, Teddy Hawley, Pip Torrens, Mercedes Hernández, Danny Kirrane, Cullen Moss, James Dryden and Corey Johnson    Distributor: Warner Bros.

Grade: D

A cinematic catastrophe warning of the danger of climate catastrophe, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s film wants to be a satire doing for reliance on fossil fuels what “Dr. Strangelove” did for the doctrine of mutually assured destruction.  But despite its grandiose ambitions, it’s just a jaw-dropping dud of an overproduced farce.

Tom Cruise, straining for an Oscar by putting on pounds of makeup rather than, like so many actors, pounds of actual flesh, plays—or more accurately, overplays—the title character, Digger Rockwell, a Texas oilman straight out of the 1950s stereotype factory. Brash, bullying and braying, he berates everyone who works for him, showing affection only for the emaciated cat, a crude animatronic thing, he insistently tries to keep alive.

One morning he’s confronted by news of a disaster that’s befallen his multi-billion-dollar project of drilling for oil through a Greenland glacier.  Sandy Clarkson (Danny Kirrane), a chubby watchdog at the project, informs him that a crack in the glacier caused by release of methane gas from the ocean floor (shots of the glowing bubbles open the film) is growing, and though Digger abuses him for such petty bad news, the crack soon ruptures, breaking off a huge chunk of the glacier; it rushes into the sea on a path that Dr, Ganesh (Riz Ahmed), Digger’s chief of environmental oversight, predicts will probably result in a cataclysmic collision with northern Europe.

That news requires an emergency crisis meeting with deeply corrupt, obviously loony—and, as he confesses, terminally ill—U.S. President Compson (John Goodman, in totally bellowing cartoonish mode) and his cabinet.  The Secretary of Defense (Robert John Burke) and the Navy Secretary (Corey Johnson) immediately plump for blowing up the gigantic ice floe, though they differ on what explosive should be used; but Ganesh notes that could merely multiply the problem.

So instead, as tidal waves rock the European coast, Ganesh and Digger rush to address the tumultuous EU Parliament, the scientist explaining the magnitude of the disaster and Digger offering not an apologia but a brazen admission that his family has long known the danger posed by drilling but, along with the government, has concealed it.  Then he goes back home, waiting for the apocalypse and pausing only occasionally to worry with his wife via zoom over what’s happening with their daughter, whose flight from Jamaica has been caught up in all the turmoil.

Or is that Digger talking to his wife?  Critics have been asked to avoid revealing spoilers in the narrative Iñárritu has laboriously constructed with Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone and Sabina Berman, but the big “revelation” that comes at the close has actually been signaled from the movie’s opening frames and then telegraphed repeatedly throughout in extended scenes featuring Sophie Wade and Jesse Plemons (who should really sue whoever outfitted him in that hideous Prince Valiant wig).

The revelation, incidentally, pretty much undercuts the writer-director’s apparent belief that he’s making a statement that could have some positive impact on the dire situation we all face as the result of climate change.  In fact, “Digger” comes across as awfully behind-the-curve when it comes to the existential reality some still proclaim to be a hoax.  The one instance in which it hits home is the part of Digger’s speech at the EU in which he argues that everyone is complicit in what the world now faces because of their demand for creature comforts and cheap goods despite what they might cost in environmental terms.  But that moment passes quickly; presumably Iñárritu realizes that however noble his intentions, it wouldn’t pay to nag the audience about its own recklessness too much.

More importantly from a purely narrative standpoint, Iñárritu seems oblivious to the fact that unlike his obvious model “Dr. Strangelove,” “Digger” just isn’t funny.  It hectors and bangs the rhetorical table unremittingly, but delivers next to no laughs.  And it wastes the talents of those who might provide some.  Goodman, usually a reliable farceur, is, like Cruise, required to play everything at “Spinal Tap” eleven volume, and as a result both are simply exhausting.  Ahmed is only slightly less frazzled, and as the sole supposed adult in the room, acts as counterpoint to supposed hilarity that’s actually nonexistent.   

Good supporting players, meanwhile, are given virtually no chance to show off any comic chops.  They include Sandra Hüller as Digger’s sister, head of what’s called an environmentally sensitive company; Michael Stuhlbarg as Compson’s exasperated vice president; and Emma D’Arcy as Digger’s aide Lina.  One person given entirely much opportunity to strain for laughs is Stephen Wight, playing a Bible-thumping preacher always at Compson’s side who feeds his messianic delusions.  The character is entirely superfluous, but one supposes that Iñárritu felt that if he had the opportunity to knock religion, especially of the fundamentalist variety, he might as well take it.

This is a big-budget bomb, however, and looks it.  The production design (Dennis Gassner and Richard L. Johnson), which must deal with the artificiality of many settings, is remarkable for capturing the highly theatrical character of the piece, even if Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography favors murkily dark tones for many scenes.  As you might expect, the editing by Stephen Mirrione and Conor O’Neill is hectic, in tune with Cruise’s mostly hyper performance, while Cosmo Sheldrake’s score is too, when it isn’t called on to groan portentously. 

There’s a smug sanctimoniousness to “Digger” that makes its effort to amuse while delivering its message curdle in the telling.  It’s further proof, if any was needed, that allowing, if not encouraging, directorial overindulgence carries fatal consequences.