by Heath Lynch, Contributing Writer
I have a genuine question. Please, answer this as honestly as you possibly can. Look at yourself in the mirror, think about how you feel, and answer: Is the fact that a film was able to achieve its objective so impressive and praiseworthy that it negates the negative experience of watching the film itself, especially when the actual achieved objective was to abrasively agitate the crap out of its audience? I’ll let you ponder that while we zoom out for a bit.
Alejandro González Iñárritu is one of the most celebrated directors of the 21st century. His two Best Director wins for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) and The Revenant, and one Best Picture win, Birdman, put him in rarefied air. As such, when he comes out with a new film, movie lovers tend to take notice. Even more so when you remember that Iñárritu directed Leonardo DiCaprio to his long overdue Oscar in The Revenant and Digger is literally being marketed as the return of Tom Cruise to ‘serious,’ non-franchise acting and the culmination of his over 40-year-long career.
Digger, a satirical black comedy and Iñárritu’s latest effort, tells the story of Digger Rockwell (Cruise). A truly detestable oil tycoon. The exact kind of eccentric billionaire that we see destroying the foundations of our society and economy today. By surrounding himself with sycophantic yes-men and ignoring any and all scientific facts provided by his top aid, Ganesh (Riz Ahmed), in pursuit of bottomless wealth. Our titular Digger commits heinous crimes against humanity and Earth itself when he disregards warnings about his oil drilling facility breaking off a part of an ice shelf off the coast of Greenland. No big deal. Except that the ice shelf is the size of the state of Maryland, and that it’s headed right towards northern Europe and that it will inevitably create a massive tsunami that will kill and displace millions of people. With more power than God himself, the world, including the President of the United States (John Goodman), turn to Digger to save the day.
An interesting enough premise, especially when you consider this is meant to be a farce that spoofs our modern times. But then again, maybe not…
It’s hard to fully talk about this without delving deep into spoilers, so please note that there are major storytelling devices here that I will not be addressing, but regarding what I can discuss, this movie largely amounts to a convoluted mess that is intentionally frustrating, made even worse by the fact that the movie wants you to forgive that it’s intentionally frustrating just because the film itself decides to hang a lantern onto that fact. Iñárritu delivers satire that is not remotely biting for the first act of the film before a reveal changes the context of everything we’re seeing, but a reveal that doesn’t change the substance. Instead of focusing on specific storytelling devices, narrative choices, and thematic through ways, Iñárritu decides it’s better to showcase every single creative idea that he has about this project with no editorial guidance. It becomes the definition of throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks. Worst of all, Iñárritu, in a fashion that’s very typical of a lot of his films, can’t help but pat himself on the back and continually remind the audience of how clever he feels that he is making such an exhaustingly annoying and frustrating watch; even if that’s the exact point.
Characters are one-dimensionally written, yelling and screaming is the natural tone of voice for the performances, and hardly anyone seems to take the time to rub two brain cells together to come up with coherent thoughts. The one time the movie does decide to question itself, a money figure comes out of nowhere to shoot down all the justified criticisms inherent in the story. This all leads to a collection of scenes and moments that vehemently did not work for me. Especially when the film is trying to be a straight Dr. Strangelovian satire that it rarely ever pulls off. It doesn’t help the fact that Digger has marketed itself with the tagline ‘A Comedy.’ Any film that has to proclaim itself as one thing, because it’s not naturally inherent in the film itself, is not the kind of film I want to be watching, seeing as hardly anything in this film is remotely funny as most of the ‘jokes’ are intentionally meant to be out of taste and eye roll-inducing.
That was my experience of watching this film. It is a relentless assault on the senses that, when delivering its satire in the manner presented, falls flat on its face with contradictory themes and comedy that doesn’t work. When Digger tries to go to another level with its storytelling device shift, it leaves you questioning what the point of everything even is as we learn nothing matters and we are no longer seeing character moments but instead are seeing acting choices. A film that’s worried about climate change and how billionaires are destroying the world, until it’s not at all as the film morphs and evolves through thematic throughline to thematic throughline before inevitably landing on overwhelming nihilism that Iñárritu loves to employ throughout the vast majority of his filmography. When your overall message is that the world is doomed and there’s nothing we can do to change it, the notion of laughing at tragedy, as Digger clearly wants you to feel, comes across as morbid and unappealing, not darkly comedic.
As so many ideas start flying around while Iñárritu tries to shift the paradigm as much as he can, the film devolves into an intellectual sparring match with itself. While it has a lot of impressive ideas it very shallowly dissects them. Instead, Digger intends to overwhelm you with its volume of ideas versus breaking any of them down to any meaningful level to encourage honest discourse and real buy-in from its audience.
All of this leads to a very grating experience. Annoying, frustrating, dissatisfying, agitating… whatever term you want to apply to the situation. And it’s entirely intentional. Iñárritu wants you to accept his worldview and presentation of this story, and if you don’t agree he gives you a big asterisk internally within the film itself to try and negate any negative criticism that you could sling his way. He says that it’s okay for you to not like the experience, because you’re not supposed to like the experience. To that I say, “But I still didn’t like the experience!” It doesn’t matter if it was intentional or not, I’m not going to give you a free pass and praise you for making something that’s inherently unenjoyable. One of the many themes that Iñárritu plays with is one about the factual truth of a situation versus the perception of reality regarding a situation, and I found that theme to seemingly contradict Iñárritu’s own intentions.
This is not to say that Digger is a waste of time, or even that this is a bad film. Like much of Iñárritu’s filmography, Digger is impressive on a production level and in its acting performances, even if I found the presentation of its narrative and the script itself to frustratingly gloat and strut around like a peacock unfurling its feathers. Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography is nothing short of beautiful. He reminds us of why he’s won three Oscars already. Cosmo Sheldrake’s score, while a little off-kilter and subtly reminiscent of something like Poor Things, really seems to fit the vibe of this story. I love the costuming and the makeup. The production design and sets themselves are tremendous. It is pretty undeniable. You can’t watch Digger and not be impressed on a visual level.
Then there’s the actual performances. Cruise is nothing short of magnificence. His return to non-franchise filmmaking and take on a ‘serious,’ so to speak, role for the first time in decades is delightful. In one performance it makes me lament all the years that were wasted in the wake of jumping on Oprah’s couch and all his Scientology stupidity. I’ve enjoyed the Mission: Impossible movies, don’t get me wrong. Top Gun: Maverick is an undeniably adrenaline rush. Yet I sit here wishing that we had decades worth of truly excellent Cruise performances at a deeply dramatic level. The way he embodies his over-the-top portrayal as Digger Rockwell, from his physical mannerisms to his outlandish accent, I wouldn’t be shocked if we finally see Cruise get an Oscar nomination for the first time since the 90s. Whether he would win or not is a different story, but his work here is very deserving of a nomination. There is one scene in particular where he delivers a monologue that is nothing short of showstopping. While the content of his message is beyond frustrating, the charisma on display shows how he can be such a force of nature. He becomes a cult of personality in that moment, transfixing the crowd around him, and even convincing some people to take his side even while the majority staunchly boo him to his face. It is the inverse of the “I want the truth!”/ “You can’t handle the truth!” moment from A Few Good Men in the best way. I guess sometimes you live long enough to see yourself become Jack Nicholson standing on that wall because you need him on that wall. I was levitating in my chair the entire time he was giving this speech, and it is easily the highlight of the film and worth the price of admission.
In addition to Cruise lighting up the stage, Ahmed is very sneakily stealing this movie. His nervous ticks and explosive anger make him the perfect audience surrogate as we all sit watching this movie just wanting to yell at all of these delusional idiots because of their corrosive nature and desire to bleed the Earth or its resources and wealth. Goodman, while he may spend 95% of his dialogue yelling, does a great job of fitting into the tone and dynamics. Michael Stuhlbarg and Jesse Plemons, even if the latter gives a speech that I found truly detestable as it exemplifies so much of how Iñárritu stylishly spits into his audience’s face, are also solid. Unfortunately, Sandra Hüller seems a bit out of touch relative to everyone else, but I found that to be more at fault of the storytelling device change and a script that really gives her nothing to do.
Frankly, a lot of this will come down to how you feel about Iñárritu. If you’re a fan of his work then you will probably have a great time here. Digger is actually a lot like Birdman in this regard. If you are a fan of that Best Picture Winner, then you’re probably going to have a blast with this. If you have found his past films to be self-serving and pretentious, even if they had a healthy dose of technical craftsmanship to them, then this might rub you the wrong way, as it did to me. It’s odd. I love Iñárritu’s debut, Amores Perros, but ever since then I’ve really struggled to connect to his efforts as each successive one continues to insist upon their own cleverness.
Notably, it’s also hard to watch Digger and not think of another movie that tried to, on its surface, accomplish similar goals. The equally divisive (as this is destined to be) Don’t Look Up from director Adam McKay was a Best Picture nominated satire about our current political and media landscape that served as an allegory for global warming. The parallels between these two films could not be more apparent. However, the difference is that, while Don’t Look Up often felt like a blunt hammer hitting a nail on the head regarding its themes, it was much more transgressive in 2021. People still needed to hear the message. Nowadays, in 2026? Who doesn’t know that politicians are corrupt? That billionaires are tearing apart the world? That we are destroying ourselves and our world? Digger’s voice feels archaic, especially because it doesn’t really offer anything more to the conversation than pointing out all these things we already know. Plus, not to add too fine a point to it, but at least, for all its faults, I found Don’t Look Up to be actually funny. Ironic, given one of the many themes is about allowing people to laugh at public figures and tragedies. I never thought I would come out of Digger with a greater appreciation for Don’t Look Up, but here we are.
I sit here rolling my eyes at the inherent contradictions in Digger as a thematic device. It’s about corrupt politicians and manipulative billionaires and the people in science trying to fight back with truth, sure. But it’s also not about that, because it’s actually about art and its influence on life and vice versa. But maybe then it’s really about truth and the perception of truth. It’s about celebrity and our obsession with cults of personality. Maybe it’s about how we just need to laugh at our inability to fix anything in the world? How we should just fully embrace nihilism, and that nothing matters and that we’re all screwed so why bother. Digger is about all these things. But, by being about all these things (and so much more, honestly) and never really diving into any of them beyond surface level questions, Digger is actually, kind of, about none of these things. Because little by little all these themes seem to contradict one another and the whole film falls apart until the whole experience gnaws at you.
So, I ask you, dear reader, once again – Is the fact that a film was able to achieve its objective so impressive and praiseworthy that it negates the negative experience of watching the film itself, especially when the actual achieved objective was to abrasively agitate the crap out of its audience? Should we praise Digger for being annoying because the whole point was to be annoying? Iñárritu’s singular conceit here seems to be to drive you insane with how stupid these characters are, even though none of them are even real characters but are revealed to be something else entirely. He seemingly forces you to laboriously sit through his bleak worldview as he proclaims himself a genius while rejecting all criticism because it hangs a lantern and shows you the secret to his sauce. Is this justification for torturing an audience? While many will say that the point was to be miserable, and that all of the decisions can’t be questioned due to the trickery baked into the script. The hard truth – The experience I had was irritating, therefore I found the movie to be irritating, and I do not care if that’s the point because I did not have fun watching this movie.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Rating: High Side of Didn’t Like It
Digger is currently playing in theaters.
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