Tom Cruise piles on prosthetics for Digger. It might be the best movie of the year - ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Digger (Tom Cruise) and Dr Ganesh (Riz Ahmed) face a catastrophe of their own creation. (Supplied: Warner Bros)

Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise) is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

His beloved cat Maggie is sick with one or two paws already over death's threshold. Calls for meetings are coming in thick and fast — and just seconds after the Southern US oil magnate manages to change out of his cat-pee-soaked silk pyjamas, a representative from his oil rig in Greenland breathlessly informs him that what was a tiny crack in the ice shelf they're drilling is now a gigantic split.

Minutes later there's an explosion, and it's safe to say that brushing it all off as somebody else's problem is no longer possible. The 60-something greying and portly Digger has to take his best burgundy suit, scuff-less cowboy boots and performative shovel out to face the problem head on. Darn it. Life is just so hard for the eye-wateringly wealthy.

Mexican filmmaker Alejandro G Iñárritu (Birdman, Amores Perros) is not one to pull punches, and Digger, his full-throated climate change satire and Cruise character vehicle, really lets the jabs fly. The fast-paced farcical dialogue rivals some of Armando Ianucci's (The Thick of It, Veep) best, weaving in flawless technobabble and political "inside baseball" moments with theatrical flair. And then the big left hook comes.

There are few things Digger (Tom Cruise) loves more than his cat Maggie. (Supplied: Warner Bros)

Just as the audience figures out Digger's deal, a shock moment that bridges the first and second act becomes a catalyst of division. If this moment loses you, you're in for a hard time.

But if you trust the process, Digger becomes one of the most worthwhile — if not best — films of the year.

Don't panic, you won't find any spoilers here, as it's best enjoyed with no clue about what's coming next.

I can say this much: the disaster farce that forms Plot A is entertaining and cathartic, delivering scathing laughs at pace. At the same time, a covert Plot B boils away underneath, steadily brewing tension and intrigue. It's wonderful and truly surprising. To borrow a gen Z phrase, Iñárritu and his co-writers Sabina Berman, Alexander Dinelaris Jr and Nicolás Giacobone really "popped off" here.

Debates over Oscar-worthiness are about to heat up, as Cruise delivers some of his finest work in years. The magnate with a Southern drawl and ten-gallon hat is pure clown — a performance that would fit seamlessly into Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove or Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.

Director Alejandro G Iñárritu (left) takes the Digger cast through their paces. (Supplied: Warner Bros)

As someone who unashamedly loves Ben Stiller's controversial 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder, I've always believed Cruise's best work is done behind layers of prosthetics. Which is to say, I'm fully on board with his performance here. Like a significant selection of Hollywood actors (hello Robert Pattinson), he's clearly a character actor who yearns to clown but suffers from a leading-man aesthetic. Well … suffers is a strong word. I'm sure he's doing just fine.

Cruise is surrounded (and elevated) by a bevy of talent in Digger: from Anatomy of a Fall's Sandra Hüller as Digger's exhausted half-sister, to the criminally underrated Riz Ahmed as the hapless science adviser, and beloved veteran actor John Goodman as a delightfully awful POTUS pastiche. House of the Dragon's Emma D'Arcy is also here, running around as a tireless political aide, and Jesse Plemons gives a typically creepy and rewarding performance as Kenny.

John Goodman is a president with a problem in Digger. (Supplied: Warner Bros)

The pitch-perfect cast makes neat work of the wordy, whip-crack dialogue — all of which is perfectly audible, sadly a real feat in modern audio mixing work. How many films must we sit through this year with dialogue that becomes mush among the overpowering score and ambient sound? This one, thanks to sound editors Mike Horton and Lloyd Dudley, proves it's still possible to record and edit the human voice with clarity, ensuring every performance is heard and understood.

The set design from Dennis Gassner, Richard L Johnson and Anna Pinnock has a sense of beautifully realised artifice — from Digger's palatial home replete with mounted mammal heads and polar bear rugs, to gaudy boardrooms that recall Dr Strangelove's war room (the one where you're not allowed to fight), and the inspired UN General Assembly Hall, where the sound comes in clutch again to build booming percussion in with persistent cross-talk and not lose a moment of the scripted lines. To behold it all is stunning, in the truest sense of the word.

Digger's half-sister Emma (Sandra Hüller) is one of the few to face off against the tycoon. (Supplied: Warner Bros)

I'm not sure who is responsible for Maggie, the corpse-like cat, but she's also a real highlight of Digger. It's been a great year for animatronics/puppets in film: Project Hail Mary's Rocky was a delight, and Baby Yoda was doing a lot of heavy lifting in snooze-inducing The Mandalorian and Grogu.

The scene where she gets an overzealous hand bath from Cruise as he continues talking disaster-PR on his Bluetooth call had me laugh-choking on my popcorn. Then she appears on a lazy Susan wearing a pink nappy. Trust me, you're not ready. Maggie deserves an immediate entry into the Cats-in-Cinema hall of fame. Which isn't a real thing. Yet.

The lasting mark of Digger is the way it twists what is a perfectly enjoyable satire into a meta-treatise about the way such narratives can redirect, sate and eventually sedate the righteous anger of the masses. Like the timeless classic (and, sadly, timely) Cabaret, the film delivers a nice catharsis for the overwhelming corruption of our world — but then forces the audience to examine how useful that catharsis actually is. It's devastatingly done.

It may not be a sophisticated way of describing a film, but Digger is genuinely a banger — and Iñárritu's best work since Birdman. This isn't hyperbole. As the credits rolled, I wanted to throw my arms up and declare "ABSOLUTE CINEMA!" like the Martin Scorsese meme.

But even in my praise, I can recognise that Digger will be divisive. That's OK. To experience a film that sparks genuine discussion about cinema is always a win, and that's precisely what this flick will do. Go and see it, and make sure you set aside time afterwards for a debrief. You'll need it.