I appear on “CTV News at 11:30” with anchor Andria Case to talk the wild Tom Cruise movie “Digger,” the meta Apple TV+ series “Brothers” and the true crime movie “Unabomber” on Netflix.
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 12:12)
I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about the absurdist environmental dramedy “Digger,” the suburban gothic “Verity” and the psychological thriller “Heel.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 13:15)
I join CTV Atlantic’s Bruce Frisko to talk about the absurdist environmental dramedy “Digger,” the suburban gothic “Verity” and the psychological thriller “Heel.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
CAST: Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons. Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu.
REVIEW: A study in justification of one’s actions, “Digger” is a dark satire, touched by farce, of narrative control in the face of crisis.
Tom Cruise, disguised by an inch of aging make-up, fake teeth and an elaborate comb-over, plays Digger Rockwell, the world’s most powerful oil tycoon. Eccentric, greedy and immoral—“Mr. Rockwell is a man who would roast our children alive if he thought he could sell them for a dime,” says scientist Ganesh (Riz Ahmed)—he does not like bad news.
When he gets bad news about the stability of one of his oil platforms, he ignores it and the resulting explosion causes havoc, creating aa ice shelf then size of Washington, D.C. on a collision course with Western Europe. “Digger here got us into this mess,” says the President of the United States (John Goodman), “and Digger’s gonna dig us out again.”
Rather than accept blame for the worldwide chaos Digger treats the situation not as a catastrophe but as a branding problem. “Panic is a resource,” he says. “When you’re running away from a house fire no one cares who left the toaster on.”
With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, Digger tries to save his company and himself by controlling the narrative. “They know the facts,” he says. “The story is yet to be told.”
Echoes of “Dr. Strangelove” reverberate throughout “Digger.” Both are absurdist nightmare comedies that skewer the egos and ideologies of powerful men, and both focus on managing the narrative of a crisis rather than dealing with it. But the cool, deadpan vibe of Stanley Kubrick’s film is replaced by a passionate, outlandish feel that will certainly divide audiences.
It’s a big movie, filled with big ideas, even if they sometimes get lost in the sheer grandiosity of the filmmaking. Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu, who co-wrote the script with Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone and Sabina Berman, presents a riff on the old saying, “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” but in Digger Rockwell’s world corruption goes hand in hand with control because that’s where the power is. Controlling the narrative is more important than solving the problem.
“They know the facts,” he says, “but the story has yet to be told.”
Digger’s a bad guy, ignorant, tacky and narcissistic, but he’s the hero of his own invented narrative and in an era of fake news and misinformation, it’s a timely and scary reality check.
The absurd and often jaundiced take on the machinery of power from Digger’s house to the White House and beyond is not subtle. Iñárritu takes big swings here narratively and stylistically. His ambition pays off in fits and starts. Some scenes, like a sequence of Digger, the President of the United States (John Goodman) and various generals, watching the iceberg collision with land is darkly hilarious, or Cruise’s ten-minute amphitheater monologue, fire on all cylinders.
But overall “Digger” values audacity, ambition and theatrics over narrative clarity. Not funny enough to be a satire, too outrageous to be straight drama, it lands in a tonal wasteland, wavering between silly and sincerity.
The parts of “Digger” that work, however, work very well. John Goodman lets his freak flag fly as the beleaguered POTUS and Riz Ahmed, as the pushed-to-the-brink climate scientist, hands in a career best performance. Cruise nails both the farcical elements of the character but lets the more intimate, realistic moments breathe in a performance that will likely draw attention from the Academy at Oscar time.
Digger Rockwell brags that the world is powered by his fossil fuels, but his movie is fueled by something else: audacity. It is a truly unique film, the kind that doesn’t usually feature such high-priced talent, but this audacious environmental drama is bordered self-indulgence and by times is a chore to sit through.
SYNOPSIS: In “The Amateur,” a new thriller now playing in theatres, Rami Malek plays a CIA cryptographer whose life is touched by tragedy when his wife is killed in a terror attack. When the agency refuses to investigate he takes matters into his own hands. Despite being “just a nerdy guy who works on computers,” he vows to use his unique set of skills to get vengeance. “I want to face my wife’s killers,” he says, “look them in the eyes, and balance the scales.”
CAST: Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Caitríona Balfe, Jon Bernthal, Michael Stuhlbarg, Holt McCallany, Julianne Nicholson, Adrian Martinez, Danny Sapani and Laurence Fishburne. Directed by James Hawes.
REVIEW: “The Amateur,” based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Robert Littell, is a workmanlike thriller, with loads of style but few actual thrills.
The story of vengeance, set into motion after CIA cryptographer Charles Heller’s (Rami Malek) wife is murdered in a terror attack, aspires to be a layered look at grief, anger, the integrity of institutional organizations and the ethics of revenge, is instead a slackly paced movie that is all surface and no depth.
It begins with promise. There’s a cast headlined by Oscar, Tony and Emmy winners, a premise that reflects government conspiracy theories and worldwide unrest, and who doesn’t love a revenge drama? But as the story unfolds it becomes a jumble of ideas that are never pulled together in a tight enough package to become truly engaging.
Malek is in virtually every scene and acquits himself well as the smartest-guy-in-the-room-with-a-grudge, but there’s never any real heat around the character. We are told over and over how brilliant he is, so while he plays a life-and-death game of “Survivor” with the baddies, it’s almost a certainty that he will Outwit, Outplay and Outlast everyone. The predictable nature of his near misses and close scrapes becomes less interesting with every minute of the film’s runtime.
And don’t get me started on the underuse of Rachel Brosnahan, who is barely given any screen time, and when she is, is relegated to playing an idealized version of Charles’ wife. Laurence Fishburne fares better but is still a stock character. He plays a no-nonsense tough guy, ripe with gravitas. It feels like the original script called for a “Laurence Fishburn type” and then they were lucky enough to get Laurence Fishburn. It’s a shame they don’t give him more to do.
As a thriller “The Amateur” rarely raises the pulse rate, but it is as a vehicle for its supporting actors that it really disappoints.
SYNOPSIS: In “The Instigators,” a new heist comedy film now streaming on Apple TV+, Matt Damon and Casey Affleck play desperate father Rory and ex-con Cobby, unlikely partners thrown together to rob a corrupt politician’s war chest. When the caper goes sideways, the inept thieves hit the road, doing whatever it takes to stay one step ahead of the police, the mayor’s henchman and a vengeful crime boss. “We’ve got to find these guys before the cops do,” says kingpin Dechico (Michael Stuhlbarg), “and put them down before they can talk.”
CAST: Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alfred Molina, Jack Harlow, Ving Rhames, Ron Perlman, Paul Walter Hauser, Toby Jones. Directed by Doug Liman.
REVIEW: Fresh off their success in “Oppenheimer,” Damon and Affleck reteam in a movie that mixes-and-matches a caper with a political satire, action with a buddy comedy. It’s a laundry list of genres, but it works, aided by a terrific ensemble cast and the steady hand of director Doug Liman.
Liman and Damon, of course, first worked together twenty-two years ago on “The Bourne Identity.” While their new movie features some action, a really solid car chase and exploding buildings, the two characters, super spy Jason Bourne and the down-on-his-luck Rory, are polar opposites.
Bourne suffered from psychogenic amnesia, and used his special set of skills to rediscover his past. Rory is very much aware of his past, of his failings as a father, and Damon plays him as an everyman, a desperate guy who’ll do whatever it takes to make a few extra bucks for his estranged family, no matter the cost to him personally. Damon skilfully balances the character’s backstory with the increasing absurdity of his present-day situation.
In a rare humorous performance, Affleck is the more obviously funny character, and yet, Cobby is not just comedic construct. He’s a small-timer, used to things going sideways, and much of the humor in the film comes from his deadpan reactions as their situation worsens.
In a strong supporting cast, featuring heavy-weights like Michael Stuhlbarg and Alfred Molina in what are essentially extended cameos, Hong Chau as Rory’s psychiatrist, is a standout, both empathetic and hilarious.
“The Instigators” has everything you expect from a film about a heist gone wrong, but really, it’s not about the robbery or the explosions. It’s about the budding friendship between Rory and Cobby. Brought together by adversity and desperation, they become unlikely allies in a film that cleverly and humorously breathes new life into the failed-criminals-on-the-run genre, through interesting characters, some high-powered action and genuinely funny situations.
