Image: Warner Bros. Pictures.

Author’s Note: Because of the nature of Digger’s narrative, spoilers are required to provide a thorough critique and analysis. As such, this review is divided in two parts: the first evaluating the cinematic aspects of the film without spoilers, and the second analyzing the thematic elements through spoilers. These sections are separated with clear markers.

Part 1: Perception

Digger is already one of the biggest bombs of the year. And, despite the obvious talent both on screen and off, it isn’t difficult to see why. Digger is an unsettling, uncomfortable, occasionally sophomoric work bordering on farce. As Alejandro González Iñárritu’s first English-language film since the Academy Award winning The Revenant, the film can often come across as too obvious for the audience inclined towards its cinematic pretenses and cataclysmic narrative. Meanwhile, and putting aside his very, very, very heavy baggage, even Tom Cruise, likely one of it not the last true Hollywood movie star, can’t make the film appealing for people outside of the cinephiles who aren’t already turned off by the divisive critical response. Yet, as much as it may seem that Iñárritu and Cruise conspired to make a film as off-putting as possible, there are many times when the general distastefulness coagulates into a sort of guilty glee.

As a character, Digger Rockwell is almost cartoonishly evil, an aging tycoon hell bent on squeezing as much blood from as many stones as possible – with blood being oil and stones being the arctic shelf – before both he and the planet die. His loathsome nature stretches from ridiculing the warnings of his own employees to anally force feeding a cat so obviously decrepit that it’s literally deteriorating in his hands. Even his home, with walls and ceilings covered in every variety of animal taxidermy, is as distasteful as possible. Still, overwhelming and repugnant as the he may be, every uncomfortable detail is vital to understanding both the character and the film. Digger’s absolute refusal to allow his beloved cat to pass on in the face of clear agony mirrors the way he clings to dirty energy even through destruction and pleas from his half sister (Sandra Huller). The preserved remains of birds on shelves and crocodiles on the ceiling reflect how Digger sees nature as valuable only through domination and exploitation. The home itself, with its labyrinth of unseen connecting hallways, demonstrates how little we know of the film, promising that there is a lot more happening under its surface, meticulously arranged to be as repulsive as the character himself.

Before release, the cat was a major point of contention for ‘Digger.’ Until people saw the rest of the film.
Image: Warner Bros. Pictures.

Similar to 2014’s Best Picture-winning Birdman, Iñárritu and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki film Digger in several long, continuous takes which follow one or more characters through carefully orchestrated interactions, making every movement become meaningful. Sets are loading with small details – paintings on the wall, buckets on the floor, rot in the corner, taxidermy everywhere – which only become more plentiful as the film unravels. Layers of make-up de-saturate the faces of the cast as a physical manifestation of their moral sickness. Every aspect of the sound design, from the off-kilter score suddenly cutting off to loud, arrhythmic thumping noises, is perfectly crafted to be as discomforting as possible, never allowing the film to slip into a state of easy predictability. In short, it isn’t long into Digger’s two-hour runtime that what once seemed merely off-putting revels itself to be a director, alongside with his cast and crew, that are in total control of every aspect of cinema. The film is so wonderfully revolting that it re-emerges as beautiful.

Never is this on greater display than in the film’s centerpiece: an address Digger gives to representatives of several European countries impacted by his mad rush to drill baby drill. Decked in a burgundy suit against muted colors and de-saturated faces, Digger delivers a glorious villain monologue, claiming credit for all his wrongdoing, before twisting this confession into an indictment of a comfortable world built on destroying its planet. The address immediately recalls Michael Douglas in Wall Street, and Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, allowing Cruise to receive his own “You can’t handle the truth!” moment in a beautifully meta instance of role reversal. Yet, where those monologues were content to focus on the delivery, Digger follows Cruise as he ascends the surroundings, fends off threats, addresses individual onlookers, falls, wipes blood from his face, and delivers likely the greatest performance of his lengthy career culminating in an extended sequence of choreographed lunacy set to rhythmic chanting and barely contained chaos. The scene is as amazing to witness as it is painful to consider. Digger isn’t responsible for killing the world. We are. He just gave us the means to do so.

‘Digger’ is likely the best performance of Tom Cruise’s career.
Image: Warner Bros. Pictures.

Cruise, obviously, throws himself into the part, with the fat suit and prosthetics being only the surface of his performance. He speaks with the dismissive confidence of someone who has spent decades surrounded only by people dedicated to complying with his every demand (which, from reports, isn’t much of a stretch for the actor). Every ludicrous moment and character shift feels authentic. Similarly, John Goodman brings every ounce of his considerable gravitas to the utterly ridiculous role of President Compson, providing the film with several of his most painfully hilarious scenes while surrounded by his Dr. Strangelove­-esque cadre of governmental lackeys. Riz Ahmed, as environmental scientist Nirav Ganesh, suitably forces himself to standout among the louder, more attention-demanding performances, bringing heart to a film about entirely heartless people. Although limited in screen time, Sandra Huller, fittingly performs Emma Rockwell as the complimenting-contrast to her half-brother, opposites in business focus and demeanor, duplicates in ruthless devotion to capitalism. While specifics have to be reserved for the next part, let’s just say that Jesse Plemons adds another character to his list of creepy white dudes. In this case, very white. Still, for all their collective firepower, nothing works without Cruise. If Digger were less divisive and more celebrated, it’s easy to imagine Cruise following Leonardo DiCaprio as another long-renowned actor finally winning an Oscar in an Iñárritu film.

Alas, Digger is already one of the biggest bombs of the year. Despite the obvious care and commitment from its cast and crew, and the 160 million dollars throw into it by Warner Bros, the film’s narrative alone is enough to turn audiences away. Audiences create a expectations of a film even before walking in, and when those expectations aren’t met, or worse, are challenged, audiences tend to be disappointed. So when people perceive Digger as a failure, they believe it is a failure. Yet, as Digger reminds us, perception is not reality. No matter how strongly those of power try to convince us it is.

Rating (which won’t make sense until knowing the entire film): 4.5 / 5

Even President Compson is more competent than our current leadership. (And John Goodman is a national treasure.)
Image; Warner Bros. Pictures.

**SPOILERS BEGIN NOW**

Update to the butterfly effect: if a tree on a stage falls, the entire world changes.
Image: Warner Bros. Pictures

Part 2: Reality

Digger has already aged extremely well.

Contrary to the prevailing opinion (ie: perception) that Digger is some convoluted and scattershot mess, the dropping of the curtain (so to speak) proves that everything from the overly ridiculous performances to the putrid surroundings are in service of its fictional world. These people are meant to be ridiculous. They are meant to be overtly evil. They are meant to be hateful. Because how else would you describe people who purposefully ignore decades of environmental science just so that they can add to their already incomprehensible wealth than ridiculous, evil, and hateful? How much of a cartoonishly despicable person do you have to be to decide that what you really want in life is to sacrifice millions of people’s lives and livelihoods just so you can have more money than could be spent in those millions of lives?

More importantly, the revelation of Digger’s narrative as that of a stage production adds an even more chilling wrinkle to its already dark comedy: the bad guys win. And they win by controlling media.

The tuna story furthers the theme of reality vs. perception in ‘Digger.’
Image: Warner Bros. Pictures.

It’s eerily prophetic that Digger released to cinemas a few days before the acquisition of Warner Bros. by Skydance Media, and that the two executives who green-lit the film’s production have already resigned. Like the film’s titular character, Skydance and the Ellison family have spent the last several years dismantling as much of the media/entertainment landscape as possible. With the acquisition of Warner Bros. everything from DC to CNN comes under control of a man who built his fortune on data systems and monitoring software originally developed for the CIA. Again, like Digger and Compson, men like David and Larry Ellison are never content with merely being among the wealthiest people in the world. No. They have to be the world. And if they can’t control the world itself, they want to control people’s experience of it. In the same way that Digger unleashes a firewall to block information of impending disaster, Larry and David Ellison want to control what people are allowed to say, see, hear, and experience. They want to make reality into perception.

We’ve already seen this with what used to be Twitter. We’ve seen this with the constant attacks on late night comedians. We’re seeing it with the White House blocking journalists whom they don’t like. We’re seeing it right now, as of the writing of this review, with social media networks such as Facebook, Tiktok, and Youtube, blocking advertisements for Alex Gibney’s documentary on Elon Musk (an investor in Skydance Media). We see it every time a thin-skinned billionaire, be he an incompetent president or an incompetent tech oligarch currently blocking a documentary, demands that all disagreement be silenced, that every criticism is a “psy op,” and that objective truth is “fake news.” We’re see this same effect with Digger as the last film ever produced by Warner Bros. “Free speech advocates” love to talk about how “you couldn’t make this film these days.” Digger is the film Warner Bros. will never make in the future. The billionaires who own the means of production, will never allow it. All because a nepo-baby failed so badly at becoming an actor that he begged his billionaire daddy to buy him a movie studio.

History will remember one of these men well.
Image: Warner Bros. Pictures.

In Digger’s climatic scene, actor Curtis Markson (Tom Cruise) screams at theater director Hannah (Sophie Wild) that the events of “Fossil Fools” don’t match those of real history. He decries the play’s depiction of Digger Rockwell as a bumbling, buffoonish blowhard and that such a caricature minimizes the suffering Digger and his ilk caused billions of people then and now and forever into the future. He questions the role of satire in a society so broken that its populace hides in bunkers and behind masks to keep away from the toxic gases these evil, hateful men released. His meltdown continues through Hannah’s protests until, finally, once all production is stopped and all attention is on them, Kenny (Jesse Plemons), the real life nephew of Digger Rockwell, ends discussion with one proclamation, “It doesn’t matter.”

It doesn’t matter that Digger and Compson weren’t on the plane together. It doesn’t matter that Digger didn’t walk around with an imaginary six-shooter strapped to his belt or didn’t feed his cat through shoving a fingernail full of tuna up her butt. What matters is the catharsis that people feel when laughing at the men who ruined their lives. What matters is seeing these powerful men of their time reduced to ridicule forever after.

As a genre, satire has always been the way that humanity expresses its disapproval. It’s how we, as people whose only power comes through our individual voice, expose the folly within those whose power comes from money, influence, and destruction. It’s how the people who have to suffer through the consequences of generations’ worth of foolishness fight back against those who wish to change our reality to their perception. It the little control, inaccurate and sophomoric as it may be, that we have over the world around us. And if our voices “didn’t matter” then these titans of men wouldn’t spend billions of dollars on media control and generative AI to silence us. Ridicule is our rebellion because one day they will be dead and we will say whatever the f*** we want about them.

Image: Warner Bros. Pictures. NOT Skydance Media.

With Kenny Rockwell, we see how future generations of Ellisons, Trumps, Musks, Thiels, and Zuckerbergs, will look upon their ancestors. We see the shame that those of our time will have on the future. Just as the grandchildren of slaveholders and bootlickers of the past spent their entire lives distancing themselves from the legacies of their families, the descendants of our present day Gestapo and techno slavers will have to spend decades redeeming themselves for actions taken now. For all its immediate prescience, Digger is a statement on the future. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the best thing humanity can do is force men who spent their lives attempting to make themselves legend into spending eternity as fools. This is how we make their perception into our reality.

In the end, for all the skill, dedication, and purpose displayed on screen, Digger’s greatest success may actually be its failure. Iñárritu, Cruise, and the rest of the cast and crew, managed to convinced a major movie studio owned by a billion-dollar corporation and about to be sold to the billionaire father of a failed actor to commit hundreds of millions of dollars to a weird, art-house film about how corporations and the billionaires who own them will be remembered as disgusting, vile, idiotic creatures whose deaths will be celebrated by millions. This reality alone makes Digger a massive success.