I found “Digger” funny and entertaining. I assumed everyone would find it funny too. It takes jabs at US politics, at larger-than-life figures, and at the impending doom we’ve set ourselves up for. Parts of it reminded me of Stanley Kubrick’s classic, landmark 1964 film, “Dr. Strangelove.” There’s also a little bit of 2021’s “Don’t Look Up.”
Early reviews are apparently polarizing for this team up involving one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, Tom Cruise, and four-time Oscar winner, Mexican director Alejandro Iñárritu.
Iñárritu keeps taking different, interesting routes as evidenced by his films: “The Revenant,” “Birdman,” “Babel,” and the one that put him on the map, “Amores Perros.”
It’s a little creepy that the premise of the film involves a gargantuan block of ice headed towards Europe, when a little over a month ago, a glacial collapse was responsible for the loss of over 1,400 lives, and the massive destruction of infrastructure in Nepal and Tibet.
Looking at the footage was scary, depressing, and shocking. Though I’ll quote Aragorn in “Fellowship of the Ring” and say humanity is “not nearly frightened enough.”
At one point, Digger Rockwell (Cruise) talks about how he is simply catering to people — after all, people burn resources to ask AI how to solve the problems caused by AI In his mansion, Digger keeps the very shovel his grandfather used to access the Texas oil that would build his family’s empire. This empire has given him access to the US President (John Goodman).
Both Digger and President Compson are now in “a dildo of a pickle” as they try to address this disaster around the corner — considering it is Digger’s drilling in Greenland that triggers the catastrophe.
Leadership, however, only listens to loud macho posturing from whoever orders the military around, and to Bible thumping sycophants, before he lets what the scientist (Riz Ahmed’s Dr. Ganesh) is saying truly sink in.
“Digger” has scenes with a meeting with a misogynistic joke. I could feel the sting of it in light of current news too.
The movie is likewise full of reminders that the United States has abandoned the Paris Accord, and expanded logging on federal forests, expanded mining while cutting down vehicle pollution regulations and gutting its Environmental Protection Agency. And “bombing” is the first solution to big problems.
The incredibly talented Jessie Plemmons’ character provides some explanation for what we’ve experienced watching this movie, as there is a bit of a twist — though I’m not so sure I wanted that explanation in there. It might have worked a bit differently if the audience weren’t offered that brief monologue.
Also in the cast are Sandra Hüller (“Project Hail Mary”), and Emma D’Arcy (“House of the Dragon”) and character actors Michael Stuhlbarg and Burn Gorman.
“Digger” opens in cinemas and at the Imax today.