“Digger” fails — but it shouldn’t have
Tom Cruise’s grandest gamble deserves better than the critical and box-office drubbing it’s receiving.
Peter Howell
Movie Critic
The dark satire “Digger” earned an estimated $8 million (U.S.) over its Oct. 2-4 opening weekend, one of the worst debuts of Tom Cruise’s career and with little hope of recouping its $125-million production budget. It deserved better from critics and moviegoers, as I argue in my review:
A mammoth drifting ice shelf threatening Europe is just the start of the insanity in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s eco-disaster comedy, which is like a feverish blend of Terry Gilliam’s nightmarish “Brazil” and Stanley Kubrick’s gonzo “Dr. Strangelove.” Iñárritu loves to keep us guessing his intentions, and he does so again, but he has a lot to say about people who want the cheap convenience of fossil fuels yet fret about global warming.
Tom Cruise has much on his mind, too, as the culpable and reckless Texas oil tycoon of the title, a dude with greasy hair, a dad bod and screw-you attitude. Cruise has played arrogant bastards before, but this is one of his better turns, right up there with “Tropic Thunder” and “Magnolia,” and also his riskiest career gamble. Kudos also to Riz Ahmed, as the scientist trying to explain apocalypse to an a-hole. As for the film’s look, the dystopian production design and Emmanuel Lubezki’s luminous cinematography are on another level.
What’s the buzz: Cruise put his heart and soul into creating Digger Rockwell, whom the actor calls his “most challenging character ever,” since it required hours of applying makeup, prosthetics and fake teeth as well as the crafting of a personality unlike his own.
Why I’m excited: At a time when an advancing Super El Niño weather system threatens the world with major storms, floods and wildfires, it seems obvious an eco-apocalypse is at our doorsteps. “Digger” is both compulsively watchable fiction and a real-life warning shot.
Other must-see October movies: https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/oct-movie-preview/article_bcd82af4-9378-4940-b0b9-c167e6302ebb.html
