Climate Change, Global Warming, Climate Crisis, Planet Heating, Global Weirding, Climate Breakdown, Weather on Steroids … whatever you call it, it’s still a thing, and if you’re only thinking about this very human caused dilemma when a movie comes out, we’ve already lost. Get ready for the most intellectual film of the year, and one that would be incredibly damning if the masses could comprehend it, Digger.
I make no pretense that commoners like me will be able to figure this one out entirely, but I’ll try: Digger is equally as bizarre as Birdman, the film that won Oscars for writer/director Alejandro González Iñárritu, but far more pointed. This one is about you and me and every 21st-Century son-of-a-bitch who has benefitted in any way from the consumerism that drives the chaos. Ever ordered a package from Amazon? Eaten something that wasn’t grown in your county? Owned a smart phone? How about this: have you ever ridden in a gas-powered vehicle? Then you are guilty. Of course, some of us are more guilty than others.
Tom Cruise (in bizarre old-man prosthetics) plays titular bombastic oil baron Digger Rockwell, an aging, out-of-touch bosshole who wants all problems solved yesterday. On the morning we meet him, his Greenland team cites fissures in the ice as a potential crisis. While Digger is dressing down subordinates, a massive explosion calves a berg the size of five Washington DCs destined to flood the entire North Sea and destroy a large amount of coastal Europe. After being briefed by his fall guy, Dr. Nirav Ganesh (Riz Ahmed), Digger meets with President Compson (John Goodman) to go over the part where they cover their asses.
At this point, Digger is spot-on satire –A global problem caused by oil-obsession is going to be discussed by old, white men who deliberately dismiss any POV they don’t agree with. There is moment that perfectly captures the idiocy here. Picture a long board room full of angry faces going over what happens next. Somebody swears, and the President says, “Please! There are ladies present!” The camera searches for a minute, and, finding no actual ladies present (of course), the dozen men in the room all burst into laughter. Then they all pray, because fake devotion goes hand-in-hand with patriarchal schadenfreude. No film to date has yet captured so perfectly the reckless greed, capitalistic myopia, misogyny, kakistocracy, faux-piety, callousness, elitism, and abuse of power of the present administration and its allies.
Ok, then, the bizarre – as if Tom Cruise as a paunchy old cat-loving man wasn’t bizarre enough. As if Greenland literally going to pieces wasn’t bizarre enough. As if an entire continent battling one loudmouth wasn’t bizarre enough … this whole thing is a play. In “reality,” Tom Cruise is Curtis Markson, lead actor in Fossil Fools, a play written twenty-five ago about Digger and the Greenland disaster. So, if you’re following along, the events of this tragedy are based on a reality that happened twenty-five years ago as a direct result of Global 
Warming and our species failure to alleviate such. “It made no sense, but it happened.”
Here’s where myself and Digger part ways. I’m certain that the fact we are supposed to be watching a satiric version of an actual history is supposed to make the reality POP, but instead, it has the opposite effect. The satire allows us to distance ourselves from the history. We know now we are watching actors acting. The POV of the monsters no longer matters because we don’t know how real it is. They aren’t the real monsters; they’re actors. Climate Change is a serious topic; nobody gets a pass just because this is a comedy. Like Birdman, this film ends up being too smart for its own good. Unlike Birdman, that doesn’t help Digger.
I’ve never seen a film that actually wanted to be Dr. Strangelove. Kudos for invoking a brilliant political dark comedy from six decades ago, Alejandro González Iñárritu. *sigh* Unfortunately, Digger, societal-wise every bit as important as Dr. Strangelove, will not be treated as well. In it’s way, it is every bit as sharp, wryly comic, and destructive. While I’m sure the film felt it got the same over-the-top performance from Cruise as Strangelove got from Peter Sellers, the film distances itself from that performance by telling us it’s a play. And, if we’re being honest, there’s no iconic “Slim Pickens rides a nuke” scene, either. This is a good film; I wish it were a great film. But it isn’t.
There once was a magnate named Digger
Who did everything in life with great vigor
Check out his coup grand
He blew up Greenland
Mistakes rarely get any bigger
Rated R, 129 Minutes
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Writer: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone
Genre: Preaching, but in a funway
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Climate change activists
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: I’d say “MAGA,” but nobody who voted for Trump will be slain by this attack
