Tom Cruise is fantastic in Digger. You might hate it
7 hours ago
This climate morality tale suggests that director Alejandro G. Iñárritu and his audience are engaging in the same self-satisfied ritual that got us into this real-life mess in the first place. Of using high-minded entertainment to point out, and joke about, our impending doom, as if that alone is admirable. As if that could change anything at all.
Alejandro G. Iñárritu's dark comedy tells the story of an evil oil tycoon and the end of the world
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Tom Cruise, left, and Riz Ahmed appear in a scene from Digger. The topsy-turvy dark comedy follows Cruise's Digger as he attempts to save the world from a catastrophe he caused. (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Those words are etched into the wood on a mantel, in all caps, below a reverently displayed 10-cent shovel — a shovel that oil baron Digger Rockwell's grandfather purchased around the turn of the century and used to start the empire Digger himself now steers to global domination.
As the film opens, Digger (Tom Cruise) stands next to it while screaming down a trio of his walleyed climate-expert subordinates about their general lack of resolve. He is delivering a diatribe for the ages about his grandfather's legendary work ethic, about toiling in the dust and the dirt and nearly dying under the blistering sun and — wait a second. Why aren't they listening to his story?
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