Digger

by Mike McGranaghan

Digger instantly takes its place as shorthand for cinematic disaster, right alongside Heaven’s Gate, The Bonfire of the Vanities, and Gigli. The latest effort from two-time Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant) is among the worst major studio movies I’ve ever seen. Amazingly, Warner Bros. ponied up a reported $120+ million to make this aggressively non-commercial slop.

You’ve probably seen the trailer, which tells you that Tom Cruise plays Digger Rockwell, an aging Texas oil tycoon whose Alaskan rig explodes, sending a massive ice shelf drifting toward Europe, where it will cause a deadly tsunami upon running aground. Digger works in conjunction with the American president, Compson (John Goodman), to find a solution before tragedy strikes. Their big idea is to have the military blow up the ice shelf, because America, yee-haw!

That synopsis is partially a lie. Without directly spoiling anything, a twist half an hour into the picture introduces a second plot, and that second plot tells us that we don’t need to worry about the first plot because nothing in it really matters. That’s a fatal narrative choice.

Although he’s made a couple decent films, Iñárritu is probably the most pompous director working today, prone to using visual show-offery to make his pretentious stories seem less pretentious. This time, he’s obviously trying to do Dr. Strangelove for the climate change era. The difference is that Dr. Strangelove was funny. Cruise, Goodman, and the other actors spout endless amounts of heavy-handed dialogue while mugging shamelessly. Actually, they yell the dialogue. Two hours of people screaming, flailing about, and making goofy faces does not automatically equal hilarity. Iñárritu also shoots everything from low camera angles, meaning you spend a lot of time looking up actors’ noses and staring at ceilings.

The overall tone of Digger is what makes the movie toxic. Everything is staged to be as bombastic as possible, including sets, sound effects, and music. It’s loud. It’s obnoxious. It’s oppressive. The climate change message is delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the head. Those qualities are the enemy of comedy. Iñárritu demonstrates no knowledge of how to deliver a punchline; he’s too busy pulling off elaborate shots that do nothing to compliment the material. If you’ve ever been in a situation where the noise is so loud and the lights are so flashy that you feel your head might pop, that’s what watching this film is like.

As for Cruise? Well, he certainly is up for his director’s broad approach. Buried under old-age makeup and sporting a thick Texas accent, he overacts wildly. The character is intended to be an exaggerated stereotype, and Cruise gives his typical 100% to that exaggeration. What’s missing is a soul. The performance is nothing but technique. Again, that’s what Iñárritu wanted. Still tiresome, though. Goodman outdoes him in the overacting department, seeming to channel Chevy Chase by way of Jack Black.

Digger’s primary satiric target is the way right-wing politicians and businessmen tend to ignore climate change warnings, despite repeated catastrophes. As long as they’re making record profits, the planet can go screw itself. The film has nothing new to say on the topic, and what it does say is practically bullhorned right into your eardrum. A coda before the end credits drives home the message with irritating, unnecessary self-importance.

In short, Digger is the most unpleasant, assaultive experience I’ve had in a cinema all year.