Movie Review: Digger
The advertising for Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s Digger made it seem like a satirical political comedy in the vein of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, and that is part of the movie. But around the half-hour mark, the film becomes something completely different than what the advertising and the first act showed. To avoid spoilers, I will not go into what this shift is, but it’s bizarre and frankly unnecessary, making Digger feel like two entirely different movies smashed together rather than one cohesive movie with a strong message.
Tom Cruise, in easily his most interesting role choice in over two decades, stars as the titular Digger Rockwell. He’s an oil tycoon with seemingly infinite power, money, and resources and lives in a Versailles-like residence with his cat who barely has a pulse. One of Digger’s oil rigs explodes off the coast of Greenland, launching a massive glacier the size of Washington D.C., into the ocean and potentially causing massive global destruction.
I wish the movie only focused on this plot. Digger is such an interesting character. Seeing Cruise step away from action films and franchise entries and give a true acting performance, with full prosthetic makeup, fat suit, and southern accent and attitude that felt like a mix of Matthew McConaughey and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, brought me nothing but joy. You can see Cruise revel in the performance. This is a boisterous, electric performance. Cruise rattles his lines off a mile a minute and shows us a man who, despite seeming like a cousin of Yosemite Sam, is a maniacal monster. Cruise hasn’t been this unlikable and captivating since Magnolia, and this plot highlights the evil and greed of American politics, a timely message that would have landed harder had the film only focused on Digger’s story.
The film’s shift takes all the air out of the movie. Again, I won’t spoil it for you. I’m sure there are articles and even spoiler reviews that will tell you what that shift is, but I won’t be that guy. Most of the movie is about Digger and him trying to stop the glacier from causing global destruction, but whenever it moves back to this other element, it’s puzzling, and the film goes from Dr. Strangelove to something closer to Iñárritu’s Birdman or Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir Part 2 (these are the only hints you’re getting from me about what other element of the film is). For most of the movie, I kept asking where it was going to go and what its purpose was. The former question gets answered; the second is a little foggier. But even when my questions about what was happening were answered, in a wonderful monologue in the third act by Jesse Plemons, it made the film’s final scenes feel empty and pointless. All the characters suddenly became paper-thin, the plot became irrelevant, and nothing really mattered. What started as a satire of American greed and politics turns into a cynical, “we’re all screwed because we don’t learn our lesson” film, and a pat on the back for artists during trying times.
Cruise is sensational, and I give Digger the slightest recommendation solely because of his performance. If you want a reminder that Cruise is more than stunts and running, and how he remains one of the best actors of his generation, this performance will do that. The supporting cast is also very good, particularly Riz Ahmed as one of his Digger’s scientists. I was never bored (I was puzzled, but not bored), and the sets are excellent. But Digger overall felt like two different films shoved into one, and ultimately took away from anything interesting the film was trying to say or show.
TL;DR Review of Digger
- Tom Cruise gives his best performance in over two decades.
- Great sets, some fun humor, excellent ensemble.
- Felt like two movies smashed together, which didn’t allow either one to be interesting.
- Worth seeing for Cruise’s performance.
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