At the time of writing, Digger has been a monumental finance disaster for Warner Brothers. From an estimated $250m budget, it’s currently pulled in around $8m globally. Critics have widely panned it, not least because of a seemingly patronising message at the start of the press screenings to warn reviewers not to reveal an early plot twist. This does seem relatively odd given that most early plot twists set the film up and are generally included in the trailer anyway. Directed by Alejandro G Inarritu – who has four Oscars warming on his fireplace and only one of three directors to win back to back best director statues, starring Tom Cruise and with a supporting cast of Riz Ahmed, Sandra Huller, John Goodman, Jesse Plemons and Sophie Wilde, how bad could it possibly be?
We open with an imminent global disaster when an oil drilling rig causes a gigantic ice shelf in Alaska to break away and head toward Europe, with the potential of tsunamis causing millions of deaths and displacements. Digger Rockwell (Cruise), head of the oil company and obsessed by the health of his decaying cat, is made aware of this by the manager of the Alaskan rig who has been trying to contact him for weeks. Initially annoyed by the priority of safety over profit, Rockwell quickly realises the scale of the issue when the president (John Goodman) and his staff announce they are coming over to his house to discuss the ramifications of the event.
For what seems like decades, Tom Cruise has been so wrapped up in Mission Impossible, his insane stunts, taking fans on helicopter rides and being an all-round decent A lister, it’s easy to forget he can be a damn fine actor. It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say this is his best performance – not just recently but in his entire career. The prosthetics help hide the famous Cruise beam, but it’s more the ferocity of the performance that truly conceals. John Goodman channels his internal Brian Blessed with an incredible, bombastic performance you can see he is absolutely loving. Ahmed too is fantastic, spending half his screentime terrified and half totally drunk. Even with limited screentime, Huller steals her scenes as completely unhinged CEO Emma.
Make no mistake, there is a level of pretentiousness here. The set designs are wonderful and straight out of the Wes Anderson cookbook, but so are parts of its posturing. Whether you can stomach that or not will result in whether you love this film or hate it. The infamous ‘early plot twist’ really does matter however, and completely changes the focus of the entire film, and in retrospect it is totally understandable why Warner Brothers displayed that press screening message. Whether you buy into it or not is another matter.
This is genuinely a very clever film, exposing petrochemical companies’ complete disregard for the climate but played out as a farce, giving it the ability to be cutting without being preachy, and allowing the actors to turn the ham up to 11. Yes, there are nods to Dr Strangelove in both focus, plot and marketing artwork, but in many ways, which can’t be discussed (I’m at your mercy WB), that is kind of the point. This will definitely find an audience and will no doubt grow in popularity as times passes and by word of mouth, and it is a shame that box office returns have been so abysmal. No doubt come awards season however, Digger will be mentioned in many categories, with Inarritu and Cruise leading the march. Dig in!
Digger is out in Cinemas now.
Review by Colin Lomas
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