Can “Digger” dig itself out of the hole the film is seemingly in after receiving mixed reviews?
Although director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s satirical black comedy starring Tom Cruise as the titular character doesn’t hit theaters until Oct. 2, it is already generating divisive conversations. Reviews for the movie started rolling in on Sept. 29 and have been split, with “Digger” landing a 52% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes as of Oct. 1.
Some are praising Cruise, who wears heavy prosthetics and sports a gray receding hairline, for delivering “an acting masterless.” Others are calling it a “languid, self-satisfied film.”
“Digger” is centered on a wealthy oil tycoon named Digger whose company is drilling off the coast of Greenland. One day, Digger receives a call from a scientist on site informing him that the drilling has caused a 5-foot crack to form in the ice, potentially leading to an environmental disaster.
“Digger here got us into this mess and Digger’s gonna dig us out again!” says John Goodman, who portrays the President of the United States. The movie also stars Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Jesse Plemons and Emma D’Arcy.
The movie’s social media pages have been leaning into the polarizing responses. The “Digger” Instagram page released a new ad that includes varying quotes from critics. “Same film different truths,” text over the clip reads.
“Decide for yourself,” the caption encouraged fans.
While we wait to see how fans react, here’s a spoiler-free look at what critics are saying about “Digger.”
The Hollywood Reporter
The first line of David Rooney’s “Digger” review made it clear he was not a fan of Iñárritu’s or Cruise’s choices in the film.
“At last, a climate crisis satire so smug and bombastic it makes Adam McKay’s ‘Don’t Look Up’ seem almost innocuous. ‘Digger’ is basically what happens when you put two outsize egos together with nobody holding the reins to keep their most self-indulgent impulses in check,” he wrote in his review for The Hollywood Reporter.
“Piloted by a spectacularly obnoxious Tom Cruise, who evidently spent hours in the makeup chair each day to look his age, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s wannabe Dr. Strangelove is a heavy-handed cataclysm scenario built around the blunt point that any attempt to halt global warming this late in the game is pure political theater.”
He said that while the movie clearly intended to have humorous moments, it failed to nail the punchlines.
“(Iñárritu’s) eighth feature is so meta that you watch in excruciating weariness as it disappears up its own ass and then realize to your dismay that there’s another eardrum-shattering hour left to endure,” he added, not pulling any punches.
He then compared the movie to recent panned films like “Babylon,” “Amsterdam” and “Megalopolis.”
One of his only compliments was for Ahmed’s performance of scientist Ganesh. He also highlighted the movie’s parliament scene.
Variety
Variety’s Owen Gleiberman compared Cruise’s transformation in “Digger” to his character in “Tropic Thunder.”
“The performance is very much of a piece with what Cruise did in his fat-suit cameo as the vulgarian studio executive Les Grossman in ‘Tropic Thunder.’ At one point, Cruise wanted to make a Les Grossman movie, and in a certain way ‘Digger’ is that movie — a chance for him to let it rip for two hours, to give the kind of stylized hambone performance that’s essentially a ‘Saturday Night Live’ caricature, only executed with Method fullness,” he wrote.
Like other critics, he referenced Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove.”
“‘Digger,’ with its countdown-to-Armageddon scenario, wants to be the ‘Dr. Strangelove’ of climate change. It also wants to be the ‘Network’ of climate change, and to radically up the ante on ‘Don’t Look Up,’ Adam McKay’s finger-pointing satire of climate change,” Gleiberman said. “Did I mention that the movie is about climate change? I take that issue seriously, but at this point a movie like ‘Digger’ is practically guilt-tripping its audience.”
He also had an issue with the humor, or lack thereof.
“But here’s the real problem: ‘Digger’ isn’t funny. It’s nervy, in your face, adventurous, and bizarro in a free-swinging, out-of-the-box way. And it feels like a comedy, since it’s fueled by the relentless overacting of a bad Coen brothers movie. But ‘Dr. Strangelove,’ built around the genius of Peter Sellers, was brilliantly funny. ‘Digger’ borrows the doomsday architecture of ‘Strangelove’ but leaves out the slyness, replacing it with a lavishly overscaled spectacle of browbeating,” he said.
Vulture
Rotten Tomatoes has Bilge Ebiri’s review for Vulture labeled fresh, but his piece skews more mixed.
He praised Cruise’s commitment to the role, writing, “His caricature of a face, encrusted with prosthetic wrinkles and loose strands of thinning hair, is one thing, but the physicality is what really impresses, almost as though he’s still doing one of those ‘Mission: Impossible’ stunts. Transforming his inner imperturbability into breathless forward motion, ‘Digger’ moves with hunched, waddling determination — part George W. Bush, part Yosemite Sam, all wombat. We can’t take our eyes off him, but we never forget this is Tom Cruise doing a part.”
However, he said other aspects, like the sets and sound design, made it seem like the movie was “designed to aggravate.”
“It’s like being trapped inside a tuba for two hours — and I don’t just mean the overinsistent score by Cosmo Sheldrake. Everything is an underline, every line a shout, every glance a grimace. It’s all expectoration, no breath,” Ebiri explained.
Roger Ebert
Robert Daniels gave “Digger” two out of four stars for his Roger Ebert review.
He said the movie comes across as an amalgamation of Iñárritu’s films “Birdman” and “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths.”
“‘Digger’ combines both heady films, and it’s excruciatingly painful that this languid, self-satisfied film doesn’t work,” Daniels wrote. “‘Digger’ never fully commits to its high concept.”
He felt that the movie lacked substance.
BBC
BBC’s Nicholas Barber had a much more favorable opinion. He gave “Digger” four out of five stars while applauding Cruise’s risky decision to take the role.
“’Digger’ isn’t just the weirdest film Cruise has ever made, it’s the weirdest film that almost anyone has ever made,” he said. “Most people won’t go to see it — and some people who do will walk out halfway through. But that doesn’t mean that ‘Digger’ is a failure. It’s just that it’s a bizarre, hectoring, conceptually challenging eco-satire, so it’s not likely to be mistaken for ‘Mission: Impossible.’”
He teased that “Digger” features some surprising twists.
“Judged purely a satire, then, ‘Digger’ is powerfully resonant. But there is more to it than that. The film has two high-concept twists which raise new questions about everything you’ve seen so far,” Barber said.
He sums up his overall feelings about “Digger” in one sentence: “Personally, I loved it.”
He continues, “Some of its excesses are, well, a bit too excessive, and most viewers will wish it was shorter. After about 90 minutes, you get tired of close-ups of Goodman yelling while snake-sized veins bulge out of his forehead. But when Cruise is clambering all over the set, delivering thunderous lectures on the oil industry, I couldn’t help grinning at the gargantuan scale of his performance, the conviction of the script’s grim environmental message, and Iñárritu’s antic style.”
USA Today
Brian Truitt was also intrigued by Cruise signing on for this film at this point in his career.
“Wearing facial prosthetics, a faux beer belly and a Texas-sized twang, Cruise pushes his own considerable boundaries and reminds that the dude can still put on an acting masterclass when he wants,” he said in his review for USA Today. “Surrounded by a knockout supporting cast, Cruise is the best thing about Iñárritu’s latest effort, a socially conscious cautionary tale that can’t quite nail all of its lofty ambitions.”
He argues that the first twist in “Digger” “changes the film’s entire perspective while also deepening its themes. The shift is jarring when it happens but mostly works, plus doles out provocative thoughts to chew on as the credits roll.”
The Associated Press
Jake Coyle said in his review that the satire works despite “Digger” not being humorous.
“The biggest ding against ‘Digger’ is that, for a satire, it’s not particularly funny. Cruise is no Peter Sellers and Iñárritu is not Stanley Kubrick. Their strenuous efforts to reach a similar black-comedy pitch can fall flat,” he said in his review for the Associated Press.
However, he appreciated how timely the film is and that it stands out among current releases.
“But ‘Digger’ is sharper on the other side of tragicomedy. An impassioned provocation aimed at both politicians and audience members, ‘Digger’ is by any measure an uncommon major studio release — as urgent as ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ but a whole lot more operatic. For better or worse, this is an of-the-moment big swing that’s unlikely to come along again anytime soon,” Coyle continues.
Los Angeles Times
Amy Nicholson noted at the beginning of her review for the Los Angeles Times that “Digger” marks the first time in years that Cruise has ventured outside of his comfort zone.
“After a decade of playing it safe with “Mission: Impossible” and “Top Gun” sequels, this is what it looks like when Hollywood’s last classic movie star finally sticks out his neck,” she said.
Nicholson wasn’t completely sold on the film, but she is pleased it was made.
She explained, “There are no emotions in it, only our own cold and cruel fears reflected back at us, as with a shot of Cruise standing defiantly in front of a mirror rimmed by antlers. It’s about inertia and abdication, not solutions, and while I don’t entirely love this strange comedy, I’m giddy that it’s lurched into existence.”
