Digger opens in theaters on October 2.
"Gentlemen, we find ourselves in a dildo of a pickle," says the President of the United States as he comes to grips with the fact that a US oil-drilling mishap has split off a city-sized ice shelf that's on a path of destruction toward Europe and will trigger tsunamis, causing untold death and destruction. That line, exquisitely delivered by John Goodman and imposingly photographed by director Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Babel, Birdman, The Revenant) in his signature low, wide-angle style, also sums up my complex feelings toward a film whose reach far exceeds its grasp and whose satire—while funny—would have felt fresher a decade ago.
Starting with an ice fracture "10 times the size of his own dick," Digger follows Digger Rockwell, the oil tycoon responsible for the ice shelf debacle mentioned above, who finds himself on the defensive as he works with the president, advisors and generals to try to stop the impending doom brought on by our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels—and when that fails, at the very least, to "control the narrative."
There's a twist that the marketing seems to be deliberately trying to avoid, so I won't directly mention it in this review. However, it fundamentally affects my opinion of the film. I'll talk around it and also fence it in with "Possible Spoiler" warnings.
But let's get right to the best part of the show: Tom Cruise.
It's been a long time since Tom Cruise has taken on a role that required zero action. I was excited for him to enter his post-Mission: Impossible era and was delighted to see elements of Digger Rockwell echo Tropic Thunder's Les Grossman.
For Digger Rockwell, Cruise dons heavy prosthetics to fully transform into the wily old oil tycoon. His look may be more Ross Perot, but it’s still clear an action star is under all that latex, climbing mantles and dancing with his shovel. Whether he's bickering with Riz Ahmed about his annoying scientific ethics or lecturing world leaders on why he's necessary—the latter of which is one of the best scenes in the film and might be worth the price of admission alone—Cruise's performance is both focused and kinetic.
Digger lecturing a United Nations-type body is Cruise's "you can't handle the truth!" monologue and might be one of the best of his career. His "You demand. I supply" rhetoric echoes Colonel Jessup's "[you] sleep under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, and then you question the manner in which I provide it" speech. Instead of Nicholson's fierce but measured delivery (which Nerdwriter expertly broke down in his Jack Nicholson: The Art of Anger video essay), Digger delivers this whole speech while pacing the set and even physically fighting with some listeners in one unbroken take.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/digger-review-tom-cruise
