Satire, farce, comedy, irony, entertainment, or tragedy? What is Digger, is a question Kenny (Jesse Plemmons) asks at a crucial moment in Alejandro G Iñárritu’s latest film. Does it matter, when an ice shelf five times the size of Washington DC is headed towards Europe to wreak death and destruction?Yeah, does it, when we are currently at the mercy of the world’s most powerful leader who may be equally unhinged, and not averse to destruction?Iñárritu digs even deeper into dark comedy and satire, and retreads his Birdman’s theatre-cum-real life territory, to give us a caricaturish and cartoonish view of the rich and the powerful, which would be absurd, but for the fact that it isn’t.The US seeing Europe as a needy, whiny friend? Tick. A President who has tycoons sit in on his Cabinet meetings? Tick. A post-truth audience that doesn’t need facts, but a well-told story? Tick. A President who sees the world through the prism of his a…hole? Tick. A tech-billionaire lurking in the shadows who can solve problems, just don’t ask how? Tick. The progressives’ lofty liberalism vs the hard lives of ordinary people? Tick. Big tech professing “to bring people together”. Tick. “Bomb first, questions later”? Tick.Also Read – Riz Ahmed on beating Fahadh Faasil, Vir Das to Digger role: ‘Hope we get to work together’One can argue that Digger doesn’t actually have much that is new to say, from the avarice of oil billionaires to cowardice of politics. And that the effect of the one rousing scene where Tom Cruise’s Digger a.k.a Rockwell holds up the mirror to the world is frittered away by Iñárritu simultaneously mocking his titular character.However, it is the absolute irreverence with which Iñárritu, who also co-wrote the story and the screenplay, tells what we already know, that it forces us to re-think all that we do. About the world we live in, the world that is changing scarily, and the world we are leaving behind.Story continues below this adIn what has to be one of the most remarkable performances of his long career, Tom Cruise leans gleefully into prosthetics and the role of an ageing, balding, paunchy, greedy businessman, whose only love is a cat that may or may not be dead. He lives in a grand, empty mansion with sister Emma (a wasted Sandra Hüller), whom he barely tolerates, as he unloads on underlings.One particular recipient of his wrath is his in-house climate scientist Ganesh “from Kerala” (Riz Ahmed, deserved more), whose warnings are used by Rockwell only to serve his purpose.John Goodman turns up the buffoonery, his jowly cheeks doing most of the work, as the US President who is about to die and doesn’t have the time for too many details. He also has as a constant companion a Reverend, who conducts impromptu prayers and blessings for the President and his men.The play-within-the-film format allows Iñárritu to switch between worlds, and hint at real life where things may not be all that great either, even as the climate disaster unfolds on the stage in unbroken bleak greys and browns.Story continues below this adIt is a marvel in staging, sets, and sound. Sometimes it is too much and often it is distracting, as Rockwell’s mansion leaks and creaks. The conflict that Cruise’s Curtis feels as the actor playing the over-the-top Rockwell is not fully explored either.Also Read – Digger movie review: After 30 years of defying gravity, Tom Cruise takes his biggest leapAnd, that ending… does it give Rockwell a sort-of redemption the film is telling us he does not deserve?“My oil gives you freedom,” Rockwell says during his address to the assembly of European nations. “The freedom to bask in the comfort of your unsustainable lives.”Story continues below this adThat’s the kind of discomfort Digger needed to raise more.