Digger Review: Tom Cruise’s Audacious Comedy Movie Misfire
Digger is the furthest Cruise has been from his familiar action hero persona in quite some time. He is Digger Rockwell, a strange, eccentric man with gray hair, a big belly, and a personality that is about as far from the effortlessly cool Cruise persona as you can get.
It is genuinely fun to watch Cruise swing for the fences with a character this different. We have seen glimpses of this side of him before in movies like Tropic Thunder and Rock of Ages, where he completely embraces a different physicality and personality. Digger gives him another opportunity to do exactly that, and he is very good at it. There is a sense that Cruise is having a tremendous amount of fun playing someone this utterly strange. Digger has a collection of eccentricities that make him fascinating to watch, including his devotion to a cat that appears to be perpetually on the verge of death. More importantly, Cruise gets to show off a personality that is not built around being cool. Digger is weird, awkward, intense, and often completely unpredictable, and Cruise commits to every bit of it.
The story, meanwhile, begins with Digger accidentally unleashing something that could have disastrous consequences for humanity, forcing him to try to prevent a catastrophe. But Digger is ultimately less interested in being a traditional end-of-the-world blockbuster than its marketing might suggest. There is a major twist early in the movie that dramatically changes the stakes, and the marketing has done an impressive job of concealing just how different the movie is from what you might expect. Unfortunately, that twist also creates one of the movie’s biggest problems: Digger starts to feel considerably lower-stakes than its premise initially promises.
Underneath all of this is a movie very explicitly about climate change and the role that billionaires and corporations play in creating and perpetuating the crisis. Digger wants to hold up a mirror to society, particularly the contradiction of people who express hostility toward climate change activism while simultaneously participating in the systems contributing to the problem. The movie is not subtle about its messaging. In fact, it is about as subtle as a sledgehammer.
One of the movie’s best sequences is a lengthy (mostly) single take in which Digger addresses an entire audience. It gives Cruise an opportunity to demonstrate just how strong he can be as both a physical performer and a dialogue-driven actor. He commands the scene almost entirely through his presence, and it is one of the clearest examples of what makes his performance so entertaining. Cruise is throwing everything he has at this character, even when the movie around him does not always know what to do with that energy.
Unfortunately, Digger eventually becomes exhausting. Everyone seems to be operating at an 11 for much of the runtime, with characters constantly yelling and escalating every interaction. That can work in short bursts, particularly when Cruise is allowed to completely embrace Digger’s eccentricities, but over the course of the film it becomes tiring. Eventually, you start to realize that despite all of the shouting and frantic energy, not all that much is actually happening.
That becomes an even bigger problem because the central conflict does not consistently feel like a matter of life or death. There is a subplot that feels as though it deserved considerably more screen time, and the movie struggles to make its characters compelling enough for the audience to become invested in what happens to them. Riz Ahmed and John Goodman are both very good, while Sandra Hüller brings her usual strength to her role, but even strong performances cannot completely compensate for a story that gradually loses momentum.
The movie’s most obvious comparison is Dr. Strangelove, another film that uses absurdity and eccentric characters to explore humanity’s capacity for self-destruction. But there is one crucial difference: Dr. Strangelove is actually very funny. Digger is not. Cruise’s performance is undeniably energetic and frequently over the top, but the movie does not have enough comedy that genuinely lands to sustain that tone. It wants to be absurd, satirical, dramatic, and socially conscious all at once, but those elements never fully come together.
The environmental messaging is clear, perhaps too clear, but the larger issue is that the movie eventually runs out of steam. It spends so much time making sure you understand what it wants to say that it does not spend enough time making you care about the people saying it. When Digger attempts to become more emotional toward the end, the impact is limited because the movie has not successfully built the emotional foundation necessary for those moments to resonate.
Still, there is something undeniably refreshing about watching Tom Cruise play a character like Digger Rockwell. After decades of running, fighting, flying, and performing increasingly spectacular stunts, seeing Cruise hide behind gray hair, a larger physique, and an eccentric personality is a welcome reminder that there is far more to his abilities as a performer than the action-star persona he has perfected. Digger may not completely stick the landing, but Cruise certainly swings for the fences. Unfortunately, the movie around him cannot always match his energy.
SCORE: 5/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 5 equates to “Mediocre.” The positives and negatives wind up negating each other, making it a wash.
Disclosure: ComingSoon attended a press screening for our Digger review.
Source: Comingsoon.net