Digger: A Review (Review #2230)

DIGGER

In 1961, Jackie Gleason signed a thirteen-week contract to host You're in the Picture. This game show had four celebrity panelists attempting to figure out what tableaux they were reenacting via yes and no questions. You're in the Picture, when it premiered, was an unmitigated disaster. The panelists struggled to figure out what scene they were in. Gleason struggled to ad-lib jokes, his hints were unintelligible to the panelists, and he grew visibly angry. He was desperate to get out of the contract but couldn't. He did find a loophole in it, however. Gleason had been contracted to do a show. The contract, however, did not specifically state what kind of show it had to be. With that, The Great One took to the screen the next week and offered a half-hour apology/postmortem on the disaster that was You're in the Picture. "Last week, we did a show called 'You're in the Picture', that laid, without a doubt, the biggest bomb", Gleason remarked to the laughing audience. "I'm telling you, friends, I've seen bombs in my day. This would make the H-Bomb look like a two-inch salute!". 

Gleason's summation of You're in the Picture came to mind after watching Digger. I think Digger could be the cinematic version of You're in the Picture. Wildly misguided, needlessly convoluted, Digger is an unmitigated disaster. At least You're in the Picture, with all its flaws, made a genuine effort to entertain its audience. I doubt that Digger, conversely, had such lofty ambitions.

Digger's plot is surprisingly straightforward, though it takes excessive turns all over the place to get there. Digger is actually not about the title character; it really is about the dress rehearsal and premiere production of the play Fossil Fools. Actor Curtis Markson is playing Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise playing both roles). Markson finds Fossil Fools' version of Digger to be cartoonish. He also objects, as Digger goes on, about the historical inaccuracies in Fossil Fools. Markson is facing a great crisis during this run-through. His daughter, who had called him during this rehearsal, is now missing after her flight hit a weather disturbance. Markson's wife or ex-wife, (I can't remember) Agatha (Annabel Mullion) assures him that their child will be all right. Help comes from an unlikely source: Kenny (Jesse Plemons), Fossil Fools' angel (the major investor that will get Fossil Fools onto the Great White Way). Kenny will use his resources to locate Markson's daughter.

The majority of Digger is about the events that make up Fossil Fools. Digger is a crazed Texas oil tycoon whose only love is his pussy named "Maggie". Yes, he literally has "Maggie the Cat". He's been repeatedly warned that his Greenland oil field is emitting high levels of methane. To quote Pete Seeger, the big fool says to push on. That decision triggers an explosion that kills the oil field workers and breaks off a large chunk of the glacier. That chunk, called Judy, is headed towards Europe, whose impact will send a tsunami through Sweden. The wise Dr. Ganesh (Riz Ahmed) warns both Rockwell, President Compson (John Goodman) and Compson's Cabinet of the impending disaster. He urges them to act fast and warn the Europeans. Compson, suffering from as he puts it, "cancer in the ass", conspires with Digger to set up a firewall, not to save lives but to stop news from spreading online.

Wrong Maggie the Cat

This naturally fails. Millions of Scandinavians are killed, with a visibly ill Compson, his Cabinet and Digger all recoiling when they see the footage. Again, the big fool says to push on. Digger defends himself to the European Parliament, denouncing them for their own greed and reliance on oil while condemning him for providing what they want. Oil is the mother's milk of Earth, he declares to them. Ganesh, now drunk, gives him more bad news. Another chunk of ice has broken off, this time from Mother Russia, and is headed towards Alaska. The chunk, called Kimberly, has the added bonus of being filled with nuclear waste. 

Over Ganesh's repeated warnings, Digger along with a whacked-out and dying President Compson decide to bomb the hell out of Kimberly. The plan is to break the glacier up. Ganesh insists that this will cause more problems. Yet again, the big fool says to push on. Unsurprisingly, Kimberly is cut down but not destroyed. At this point in Fossil Fools, Markson objects to all of this. Fossil Fools is historically inaccurate: neither Compson nor the weak-willed Vice President (Michael Stuhlbarg) were aboard the planes that dropped the bombs on Kimberly. Fossil Fools is also mocking the millions of dead that resulted out of Rockwell and Compson's actions. Fossil Fools director Hannah (Sophie Wilde) insists that people need this satire because it's funny. The public needs to laugh at these imbeciles. Fossil Fools, which Hannah says is a "cult classic for twenty years", is an outlet for people. Eventually convinced by Kenny, whose connection to Rockwell are revealed, Markson continues.

Fossil Fools reveals Digger Rockwell's fate. I would have said "sad" fate, but the audience gives the show a standing ovation. However, as the play ends, we find that they are warned about being at "Level Four". Up come the masks, as we exit Fossil Fools and enter a dystopian world of sludge, flood and unbreathable air.

While watching the credits, I was astounded that Digger has four screenwriters: Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Sabina Berman and director Alejandro G. Iñárritu (with Jez Butterworth, Berman and Iñárritu receiving "story by" credit). This might be a case of "too many cooks in the kitchen". Digger, I think, wanted to have its cake and eat it too. Iñárritu and company figured that they could get away with having all the performances be broad and cartoonish by having Digger be a "play-within-the film". 

It did not work. 

At about the twenty-to-thirty-minute mark, we get that "shocking" twist about Digger. We find that what we are actually seeing is not a straightforward film about a crazed, senile oil baron. Instead, it is what is called a "satire" about said oil baron. Once that happens, the suspense (and the thrill) is gone. You sit there, somewhat in frustration, knowing that what you are watching are a group of people being overtly, manically unhinged. The jutting in of Markson's family crisis do not inject anything into Digger except a bloated runtime. Digger never made the case for either story: that of Digger Rockwell, oligarch spoof, or Curtis Markson, frustrated and worried actor. Knowing that you are watching a play, you do not have any vested interest in Markson or in Rockwell. Digger never makes the case for why you should care about anything or anyone here.

I admit that I laughed exactly once while watching Digger. It was when Hannah told Curtis that Fossil Fools was a "cult classic for twenty years". If I take the premise of both Digger and Fossil Fools at face value, the latter would not have been a cult classic, let alone one that would receive thunderous standing ovations. That idea is self-congratulatory BS from everyone involved.

I say this because Fossil Fools, as presented, is not funny. Had it actually been presented on the stage, it would be clear that everything was played so broadly. I do not think anyone would enjoy watching people screaming at each other for two hours. Herein lies one of Digger's greatest faults. Once we learn that we are watching, not a story about Digger Rockwell's disastrous choices, but an overexaggerated rendition of "true events", it becomes torturous. 

There is a strong undercurrent of meanness and anger in Digger. That is, in my view, deadly for what is called a "satire". I've long believed that a good satire, at heart, has if not love at least affection for what it is spoofing. Digger looks to be inspired by Dr. Strangelove, down to a variation of the latter's War Room. However, while Dr. Strangelove is farcical, it still plays everything straight. Digger, conversely, revels in being so over-the-top that both audiences (Digger and Fossil Fools) would sit rather stupefied that people thought any of this was actually funny.

We saw a bizarre scene where Compson's Cabinet gathered around him to pray over him. The presumably evangelical Christian was so blatantly exaggerated in his manner that had it been any other religion, it would have qualified as a hate crime. Said evangelical even slips into speaking in tongues. It makes no sense on any level, even on the deliberately cartoonish manner of Fossil Fools. Later on, a drugged up Compson tosses the Bible and the evangelical advisor/Cabinet member out of his bedroom. "The Bible was written by Hebrews, not Americans", Compson rants. You cannot have good satire if you have contempt to downright hatred for what you are spoofing. You don't have to like the subject of parody. You don't, however, have successful parody/satire if all you do is yell and not give anyone an ounce of intelligence.

I can see why Tom Cruise would be attracted to the role, or rather, roles in Digger. He gets to go all cray-cray as Digger Rockwell, speaking and raving seven thousand miles per minute. As Digger Rockwell, Cruise can never ham it up enough to meet the demands of the role. As Curtis Markson, Cruise can have more toned-down moments. It is unfortunate that, based on his performance, Tom Cruise based Digger on The Simpsons' Rich Texan. All he needed were the two revolvers. It is not clever for "Curtis Markson" to point out that "Digger Rockwell" is cartoonish. Having the revelation that Digger IS a cartoonish version in Fossil Fools does not help. 

While Cruise as Digger did make me think of The Simpsons' Rich Texan, I also thought that he came across as a more unhinged Cyril Sneer from The Racoons. At least Cyril Sneer showed that he was a good father to Cedric. Digger's only positive was his obsessive care for his pussy, Maggie the Cat. 

I will say that Tom Cruise's performance is "correct". I will not that it is "good". He played the parts exactly as written. They were poorly written, especially Digger. Still, Cruise played them as written and directed.

I think the same goes for everyone else. John Goodman leaned in heavily on the overexaggerated caricature of President Compson. He bellowed and yelled to his heart's content. Goodman too toned it down a bit when playing the actor playing Compson. Again, like everyone else, Digger's broad, broad, broad manner was deadly. Sandra Huller, in a small role as Digger's half-sister, seemed unnecessary. I think she did her best, but there is only so much anyone can do with an underwritten role. 

Riz Ahmed is not good as Dr. Ganesh. He seemed closer to a Wes Anderson character than an Alejandro G. Iñárritu character. Jesse Plemons looked rather freakish as Kenny, part psychopath part bumbler. Sophie Wilde's Hannah just came across as a bad director.

Digger has some truly odd moments. In Digger's crazed "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!" moment with the European parliament, he makes a bizarre statement even for him. He declares that if not for him, Europeans would be "writing in Cyrillic and speaking in Mandarin". Make of that what you will.

Digger is a meandering, disjointed, self-important piece of junk. It is cinematic torture. It is a terrible shame that whatever it wanted to say about anything was drowned by its own belief in its greatness.

DIGGER: THE ANIMATED SERIES

DECISION: F