“Decide for yourself,” Warner Bros marketed this week, as the Digger reviews began rolling in and were decidedly mixed. Like, they don’t want to say it’s super clever and to get it, you kinda have to be…well, we’re not saying a lot more intellectually gifted, but we’re not not saying that, you know? It’s just probably a little gauche to self-describe.
Anyway, the movie Digger. The Dubya B’s earlier marketing made it difficult to assess what it was about besides, “Hey, y’all remember Tom Cruise? He’s in this!” And boy, is he! Clad in the get-up they used to turn Dana Carvey into George Bush (I assume), he kicks and hollers across the screen. Most of his shenanigans are in service of just about the most stultifying satire you might ever witness. Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu is clearly telling a bigger story here, but whether that works is a matter of a little discussion.
Tom Cruise Is Digger Rockwell
(Therapist: Digger Rockwell’s cat can’t hurt you
Digger Rockwell’s cat:)
Tom Cruise used to be an actor. This may come as a surprise to younger audiences, who probably better know him as Mission Impossible‘s Ethan Hunt. As Hunt, Cruise is much more well-known for his enthusiastic participation in his franchise’s action sequences than for his acting. He does his own stunts, they told us and tell us. And this is not to say that the MI films are bad. They’re outstanding in their field, which isn’t the backhanded compliment it may sound like.
But they’re not really challenging. Cruise has long flirted with action in his career, but he also used to play characters. He’s Maverick. He’s Ron Kovic (the movie version). He’s Jerry Maguire, who had us at hello. He’s Lestat de fucking Lioncourt. He’s Les Grossman. We can’t handle the truth, but he can. He’s made so many characters household names it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Warner Brothers used that as a selling point for this movie.
It all leads up to this, they told us and tell us. He’s doing character work again – real acting. He’s Digger Rockwell, an oil tycoon who inherited everything he has, including the melancholy. Maybe the George Bush comparison isn’t so far off. Except instead of the father, I’m thinking of W. Or rather, I’m thinking of Will Ferrell’s portrayal of him, in which he careened from boastful and brash to momentary flickers of regret. The same is true for Digger, as he watches a problem he dismisses as a minor hiccup metastasize into an apocalyptic disaster.
The Satire In The Film Never Quite Works
At first, he tackles the problem with his usual bluster. There’s no hassle that he can’t solve with enough money and/or enough influence on the right channels. It soon becomes clear, though, that those related parties, including the actual President of the United States (John Goodman), would rather shrink from responsibility and let Digger carry the weight and the ignominy.
This leads to one of the movie’s most electrifying scenes, in which Rockwell faces a crowd of world leaders. Against a soundtrack of murmurs, chants, and general sounds of disapproval, he takes to the lectern as if it were a pulpit. At this point in the film, this is the most compelling Cruise has been and the supreme gag of it is that he makes it look easy. At the same time, the backdrop is queasy and drained of color, which enhances how alive he seems in these moments.
Would that it could all be like this. The effect in this scene is broad, a little camp, until you’re practically expecting him to snarl out that his audience can’t handle the truth. Like, deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want him digging for oil. You need hi– However, this experience is nothing compared to the blunt object that is the rest of the satire, which is never as sharp as it could-should-be. Instead, it’s just so painfully unfunny, except for one line, which they immediately render hack with exaggerated laughter. Of course, there’s a reason for that.
Ultimately This Is a Story That Gets In Its Own Way
It’s hard to discuss that reason, though, without giving away a load-bearing part of the plot. A part, incidentally, that the studio would rather I not share. So I’ll talk around it. There are some big ideas in this film, including the looming threat of climate change, which is almost its own character. There’s also the necessity of art, particularly during a low point in the human experience. And you best start believing in that, because we’re in-you get it. You get the themes.
But like Primetime before it, it all ends up being more about style than substance, although the former managed to be also entertaining. Digger just drags and drags until its denouement, at which point it picks up again. The story turns into something more like catharsis, both for its characters and its audience. This culminates in a genuinely moving final scene.
Before then, though, we’re down in a hole, with an intentionally weak story and a movie that squanders Sandra Hüller, who does as much as she can with a paper-thin character. Michael Stuhlbarg and Riz Ahmed, meanwhile, feel like their characters are transplants from other films. However, Jesse Plemons has more luck with his, a man who’s found a measure of control in excavating his family’s tragedy. Or is it our tragedy? Or maybe both? You’ll have to decide for yourself.
Rating: 2.5/5
featured image via Warner Bros
