Digger is an audacious mix of dark comedy, surrealism and political punches. Some of the adult humor feels rather forced and the tonal shifts isn’t for all. But as a whole the film does a fine job in exploring corporate greed, political delusion and climate crisis among others. Tom Cruise in a career defining act submits wholeheartedly to the movie’s whimsical tone coming up with a fantastic act. Riaz Ahmed in a substantial supporting role also stands his own
Starcast: Tom Cruise, Riaz Ahmed, Sandra Buller and others
Direction, screenplay and story: Alejandro G Innartu
Additional screenplay: Alexander Dinelaris Jr, Nicholas Gicabone and Sabina Berman
Additional story: Sabina Berman and Jez Butterworth
Music: Cosmo Sheldrake
Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki
Producers: Tom Cruise, Mary Parent etc
Production Companies: TC Productions and Legendary Pictures
Running time: 2 hours and 9 minutes
Certain movies begin in a certain way and become something else with the plot going in different tangents. Digger starring Tom Cruise and Riaz Ahmed perfectly fits this description. The film begins as a tale of an oil billionaire Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise chewing the scenery). Rockwell’s unlimited greed and negligence leads to a catastrophic explosion; this is related to an oil drilling rig situated in Greenland. Global destruction is on the horizon leading to a frantic and over the top mission. But after a point the film slips into a completely different tangent. There is a meta twist involving the entire plot. The details of which are better seen on screen rather me saying. In simple terms the story is a broad political comedy critiquing capitalism.
A strong aspect of Digger are the political punches through the characters of Digger Rockwell and the overall American government. The theatrics following the environmental collapse gives the movie some of its best moments.
There is a lot of political theatre with the government trying to manage the upcoming catastrophe, the reliance is more on media manipulation rather than doing something meaningful. These portions though set in lower Manhattan holds relevance to our political situation too.
You also have scenes of Rockwell being casually dismissive about the climate change aftereffects. There is a dialogue of Rockwell where he describes the loss of human life as simply the cost of doing business.
A special mention must also be made of Riz Ahmed playing Dr Nirav Ganesh. Unlike others around him Nirav Ganesh isn’t afraid to voice out his opinions. There is a superb scene involving Riaz and Tom Cruise on a plane where Ganesh puts forth his unfiltered thoughts. The actor simply nails it.
However, the same cannot be said about Sandra Huller as Digger’s half-sister and business partner. She walks in and out of the frame without much purpose, it would been much better if the director had scrapped out the part entirely or had fleshed it out better.
As already mentioned the film goes into a completely different tangent after a point. This direction does take some time getting used to, but the backdrop of theatre and its integration has been well done.
The production design and cinematography are on point as well. Emmanuel Lubezki in particular deserves a special mention for how he has captured the films different tonalities through his lens.
Final word: Digger is worth watching for fans of surrealism and political satires