Movie Review: ‘Digger’

Plot: Aging billionaire oil magnet Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise) finds himself at the center of an environmental disaster. After ignoring multiple warnings, a pocket of methane explodes in an area of Greenland that Digger’s company was drilling, killing multiple employees. Subsequently an ice shelf the size of Maryland dislodges and heads straight for Europe. With the assistance of his environmental safety chief Dr. Nirav Ganesh (Riz Ahmed) and the backing of the unhinged and delusional United States President Compson (John Goodman), Digger rushes to find a solution, but more importantly, to control the narrative.

Review: Next to The Shawshank Redemption, I consider The Green Mile to be the best Stephen King adaptation. In that movie there’s a scene just after the botched and horrific death of Eduard Delacroix, where Warden Hal Moores confronts Paul Edgecomb and company and exclaims, “What in the blue FUCK was that?”  

That is exactly the sentiment I felt both during and after I watched acclaimed director Alejandro G. Inarritu’s provocative new film Digger.   

Now if you’ve followed my reviews on House of Geekery for any length of time you know that I typically break down the cinematic structure of whatever film I happen to be critiquing that day. I could do the same with Digger. I could talk about Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography (masterful), I could discuss Cosmo Sheldrake’s score (forgettable), I could opine on Dennis Gassner and Richard L. Johnson’s production design (sublime), I could regal you with the exploits of Jacqueline West’s costumes (dreary but memorable), pontificate on the screenplay (memorable, bonkers, pretentious), or examine the direction of Inarritu (both messy and brilliant). I could do all those things.

I could.

But I’m not going to.

To be sure I will discuss the acting performances (how could I not?) but I want to discuss what Digger made me think and what Digger made me feel. At the end of the day while the cinematic components of Digger are relevant and important, they are somewhat secondary to what Digger evokes in the viewer.

Without question, Digger is one of the wildest, wackiest, darkly humorous, borderline pretentious, confounding, provocative, unpleasant movies I’ve ever seen. When I watched this movie, I felt like I was trying to grasp an amoeba. Much like Ron Burgundy I was in a glass box of wild emotions. I’d vacillate between believing Digger was a masterpiece and a mess. At certain times I’d find Digger interminable and a chore to watch, and other times I was so captivated and enthralled I couldn’t look away. It was a level of cinematic whiplash that should have put me in the hospital. You can’t help but feel that Inarritu intentionally made a farcical and absurdist climate change movie that was deliberately unpleasant and irritating to consume. The more I ponder it, the more I think that was the point. Yet for the life of me, I still can’t decide if this was a genius decision by a masterful filmmaker, or a colossal misfire from a director whose reach far exceeded his grasp.

If I’m being extremely light on plot details in this review, please know that is by design. There’s a record scratch moment about 25 minutes into this film that will dramatically affect your relationship with Digger. It completely changes the dynamic of the entire movie. I won’t ruin it but suffice it to say, the movie you think you’re watching is not the movie you’re actually watching. I will admit that when the turn happened it threw me for a loop. I felt like someone sliding down an icy set of stairs. It took me a moment to grab the railing and find my footing, but once I did I was locked in. Yet I’m still wrestling with the notion of whether it was a brilliant choice or the height of director hubris.

One thing I can say is undeniable about Digger is Tom Cruise’s stunning performance. Cruise is one of those rare people who can bridge the gap between actor and movie star. Unfortunately, in the last two decades audiences have experienced Cruise the movie star more than they have Cruise the actor. I think it’s fair to say his last truly great performance was Magnolia. With Digger, Cruise delivers his best acting performance since Born on the Fourth of July. For the two-hour runtime of Digger, you cannot look away from Cruise. He’s simply enthralling. There’s a ten-minute monologue about 45 minutes into the film where Cruise’s Digger absolutely eviscerates both sides of the climate change argument. It’s as subtle as a slap to the face with a week-old fish, just like the movie itself. I was astonished. The best compliment I can give about Cruise’s turn in Digger is that for the entire runtime I never once saw Tom Cruise. All I saw was Digger Rockwell.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the incredible performances of Riz Ahmed and John Goodman as Dr. Ganesh and President Compson respectively. Nebbish but endearing, Ahmed’s Ganesh is the smartest guy in the room amidst a conference table of morons. He’s screaming that the building is engulfed in flames while the house guests vehemently shout that the very concept of fire is a hoax cooked up by the fake news. Ahmed also delivers one of the best drunk moments I’ve ever seen on film. Goodman’s Compson meanwhile feels like the amalgamation of every old, out of touch, delusional politician holding office today. I mean that last as a sincere compliment. A scene where Compson proposes nuking China as a distraction was simultaneously repugnant and ribald.

Here’s the weird thing about Digger: it is completely convoluted and unsure as to what kind of film it wants to be. Is it a drama? A satire? A farce? An absurdist dystopian science fiction tale? Or is it all of them, as one character says late in the film? Yet there’s meta commentary within the film that states that, yes, Digger is all those aforementioned things. Moreover, there are clear cinematic influences of films like Kubrick’s Doctor Strangelove, the Cohen Brothers Raising Arizona, Wes Anderson’s Rushmore and Fantastic Mr. Fox, and even Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.  However, there were times during Digger that I wished I was watching one of those other movies I just mentioned because they did it better. Good Lord, “conflicted” is too small a word to adequately describe my feelings about Digger.

Having said all that, the question is, does the meta commentary and the cinema influences work or is Inarritu trying to justify his own mess? I don’t know the answer. It could be both. When it comes to Digger, you might as well put a picture of the poster next to the word “inscrutable” in the dictionary.

As an astute cinephile, I was well aware of the polarizing critical reviews of Digger. Yet many of the reviews felt overly bombastic and grandiose in their vitriol.  I imagined multiple reviewers rushing to sharpen their knives on their way to their laptops to eviscerate Digger. After seeing the film, I completely understand the polarization. If you find this film a brilliant, misunderstood satirical masterpiece, I get it. If you find this film an irritating slog with a failed conceit and a level of pretentiousness so far up its own ass that it can see its back teeth, I get it. If nothing else, at the absolutely minimum, whether you think Digger is a masterpiece or a misfire, this is undoubtedly a provocative film. It’s already launched a thousand think pieces and I can see this becoming a cult classic and getting a critical re-evaluation years from now. (Don’t forget, Blade Runner and The Thing both released on the same day and were both commercial and critical flops.)

After over 1300 words opining on Inarritu and Cruise’s Digger, I find myself deciding to do something I’ve never done before with a review. Codifying Digger is like trying to turn a desert into an ocean using only a thimble to transport the water. It’s an impossible task. Digger confounds my ability to measure it by a simple number. Therefore, for the first time ever, I’m not awarding Digger a score.

Digger proves to be both a confounding and compelling exercise. Whether or not you should see this movie, I can’t say. You may be mesmerized or you may wish you were born blind.

Dear Reader, I leave the choice up to you.