Ticketworthy - Digger

At this point, everyone has seen a movie that chooses style over substance. Maybe it’s a loud, violent action movie that asks you not to think too hard about the plot. Perhaps it’s a drama or a romance where all the characters are actually terrible people and the filmmakers just hope you don’t notice. Most of the time, though, it’s obvious when a film doesn’t have anything to say and just wants you to turn your brain off for its runtime. Digger, the newest post-Mission: Impossible vehicle for Tom Cruise, is not one of those movies. It has a lot to say and is desperate for its audience to listen as it dances around its elaborately designed set pieces and overwritten plot twists. The problem is, its critiques of corporate greed and inaction against global warming are so blatant and farcical that they play like jokes more than condemnation. This isn’t a profound movie trying to talk about important ideas, it’s a bland vanity project pretending to be more.

*Normally this is where I’d dive into the plot, but there is simply no way to discuss Digger without spoiling its major twist. So, if you care about that, consider this your warning. Spoilers lie ahead.*

In the beginning, the story seems to be about oil tycoon Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise), an aging, wealthy businessman. His company is responsible for an explosion that has pushed a massive Arctic ice shelf out into the ocean and on a collision course with Europe, threatening an unprecedented environmental disaster. This is revealed to all be a theatrical production, however. In reality, actor Curtis Markson is starring in the play “Fossil Fools” as Rockwell. Markson struggles with the characterization of Rockwell as a comedic figure rather than a dangerous and evil one while the production works out the final tech issues ahead of their debut performance that night.

In theory, the “play-within-a-movie” idea isn’t a bad one. It’s honestly a fascinating way to frame the narrative that opens up all kinds of avenues for the filmmakers to explore. Characters can comment on the story being told directly because they know they are the ones telling it. Instead of the various set pieces looking silly because they are overdesigned Wes Anderson knockoffs, they look brilliant because that’s exactly what they are trying to be. Abrupt time jumps and tonal shifts make sense, plays do that all the time. It’s really a very smart framing device.

Unfortunately, that seems to have been the entire point for including the theatrical elements at all. They are just there to be shocking and get the audience talking. As far as the actual story goes, they don’t add much. Almost all of the important parts of what the film is getting at, the dangers of ignoring regulations and allowing rampant capitalism to dictate environmental policy, are found within the story of Rockwell, not Markson. Had the “real world” scenes not been included and we’d just seen Digger’s story, it wouldn’t have changed much beyond making the runtime mercifully shorter. There’s only one idea explored, that making satire out of truly evil people sanitizes that evil, that I believe required the “play-within-a-movie” structure, and that gets pretty quickly brushed aside. The whole thing seems like director Alejandro G. Iñárritu accidentally stumbled upon an interesting narrative device but had no idea what to actually do with it.

As far as performances go, Cruise is obviously the center of the story. Everything revolves around him. As Rockwell, I have to give him a lot of credit. He dives headfirst into the role and it pays off. I can’t say the same for his take on Markson, but that’s more to do with Markson just not being terribly interesting. The most fascinating moments the character has are when you can see him break character from Rockwell for a moment to really contemplate the acting choices he is making. Cruise is excellent in those moments. I can’t say much for the rest of the cast, as almost everyone but Cruise is criminally underused. It’s a big cast that just has very little to do.

Much like the cast, the writing and directing don’t really stand out either. The sets are well designed, but most of the camera work is dedicated to making everything look as theatrical and over-the-top as possible. There are a few neat tricks, such as a scene where the crew working on the background outside of Rockwell’s window look like giants because that backdrop is actually a miniature set being projected onto a screen. I thought that was a very fun visual. Most of the time, though, the job is just “point the camera at Tom Cruise.” The writing suffers from much the same problem, where it is ultimately only there to serve the lead actor and little else. The jokes aren’t terrible, but they don’t exactly land either. I can’t remember a single one that made me genuinely laugh. That’s not great for a movie that bills itself as a black comedy.

If I’m honest, my biggest issue with Digger is that it seems proud of its mediocrity. For all its dressing and its delusion of grandeur, it accomplishes almost nothing, and it doesn’t seem like anyone involved cares. It utterly wastes a fun structural device, it isn’t funny, nobody outside of the lead is given anything to really work with, and the message has all the subtlety of an actual iceberg hitting you in the face. Digger is far from the artistic, meaningful satire that I’m sure it was meant to be, and it probably should have stayed buried.