So … there’s a lot going on in the latest Tom Cruise joint, Digger.
I can’t say a lot without giving too much away. I can give you this little piece of info, though: This is one of the nastiest, loudest, angriest, meanest, craziest and, yes, truthful movies you will see this year—or any year.
Does that mean it will be entertaining? I’d say there is at least a 50/50 chance you will hate this movie, for myriad reasons. I thoroughly enjoyed this journey into cinematic madness, but I couldn’t argue with somebody who never wanted to see it again. Digger is the very definition of polarizing.
Cruise plays the title character, an oil baron drilling holes all over the earth, some of them causing precarious situations. When one situation starts to get out of hand, Digger must confer with world leaders—including a craggy U.S. president (an unhinged John Goodman) who is stricken with a very graphic illness—to save the world from environmental catastrophe.
No doubt, writer-director Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant) had Donald Trump in mind when he made this movie, along with the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Ross Perot, Vladmir Putin, Xi Jinping, Joe Biden, Dick Cheney, Benjamin Netanyahu, Kim Jong Un, Ronald Reagan, etc. This dude is pissed, and he wants you to know it—and he’s got a big budget and an A-list movie star to express those feelings. To say he goes all out is an understatement.
The film is being classified as comedic satire, but it’s not a laugh riot. It’s more like sharp, caustic, ear-bleeding, apocalyptic satire. There are some moments that get genuine laughter, but most are uncomfortable laughs.
As with all of Iñárritu’s films, Digger is a constant wonder at which to look—it is sharply edited and beautifully shot, with stunning set design.
Cruise is firing all of this rockets here, often raging and heavily emoting in his effective prosthetic makeup. After a while, he disappears into that garb. A big twist happens earlier in the film and carries on throughout the remaining time, followed by another big twist that helps the film come close to making complete sense.
This is Goodman’s best screenwork since Barton Fink decades ago. That’s not to say Goodman hasn’t been doing great things, but I’ve always considered his Fink performance his best, and now this is in contention for his career-best. Riz Ahmed, Jesse Plemons and Sandra Hüller all make solid contributions. However, this is Tom Cruise’s show, and he’s up to the task.
Cruise has a monologue toward the end that is the best thing he’s ever done onscreen—better than his Magnolia performance, better than his work in Born on the Fourth of July, and ever so slightly better than everything he did in Tropic Thunder. It’s at least worthy of an Oscar nomination, considering what we’ve seen so far this year.
The film echoes how much of the world feels about aging leaders and billionaires calling the shots. It’s also, perhaps, a full-on indictment of America’s current leader and state of being. The dude who made the movie is not impressed. You might feel the same way—and how you feel might guide how you react to this movie.
For me, Digger is a good, absolutely necessary movie. It didn’t make me feel great; in fact, it disturbed me—and sometimes, films are supposed to do just that.