Counter Culture

Spoilers?

Before the movie proper begins, the audience are requested not to ruin the enjoyment of the film for others by revealing the major twist that occurs roughly a quarter of the way through. That might sound as if Digger might be way too full of its own self-importance, but that twist, which is more of a tonal-narrative shift than a ‘twist’ is so integral to a first viewing experience that I believe it to being a justifiable request, and as such I will try to honour it.

This does make a full in-depth review which explores every major facet of this multi-faceted work of art difficult to do, but I’ll do my best. If you’re looking for short-cuts, then plenty of reviewers in both video and prose form have chosen to ignore the filmmaker’s wishes. ‘Knowing’ won’t make enjoyment impossible, but the impact of that first look will certainly be lessened. Really, this is movie that is best seen twice (at least), once ‘blind’ and once ‘eyes-wide-open’.

To get the conclusion out of the way early, this is the most interesting new film I’ve seen in a long time, and maybe the best.

Introduction

If you’re looking for an action packed ‘Tom Cruise Movie’, then Digger is unlikely to be for you. The closest comparison I can think of is with those who went to see The Truman Show expecting a silly Jim Carrey knock-about screwball comedy.

Despite being the brainchild of a major filmmaker in Inarritu (though Birdman and The Revenant are the only examples of his filmography I recall seeing), a $180M or so budget, and the presence of Cruise, John Godman and a stella supporting cast, this looks like being one of the biggest Box Office flops of the year, certainly of Tom’s career. Some theatres have already pulled it within two or three weeks of it opening. It’s also sharply divided critics. It is perhaps noteworthy that amateur movie-buff video reviews on You Tube have tended to be much more positive than the professional arbiters of taste who make a nice living out of telling us what to think.

I’m firmly in the positive camp, though I recognise that when it makes an appearance on Amazon or Netflix or wherever, probably before Christmas, most casual viewers simply won’t get it.

Despite the money lavished upon it, Digger is essentially an art-house/cult movie, even if it’s difficult to envisage Cruise in a cult film, unless it’s a Scientology advertising enterprise.

I’ve long been a fan of Dogville, another highly unusual movie featuring a major star (Nicole Kidman), and I also defied convention by really liking the second Joker movie, so I suppose I’m front-and-centre as far as its target audience is concerned.

I wouldn’t have known this from the misleading marketing campaign, which definitely hasn’t helped its reception. I’m fortunate in that I hadn’t seen so much as a single trailer, so went in with no preconceptions. I’ve seen a few of them since, and all I can say is, don’t be either put off or by encouraged by them, because their relationship to the film itself is so flimsy as to be all-but non-existent.

Plot

At its simplest level, it’s an eco-disaster movie. An oil rig in Greenland owned by mega tycoon Digger Rockwell (Cruise), a living embodiment of Big Oil, explodes, sending a giant iceberg with added tsunami heading towards Western Europe, starting with Nowway, with incalculable consequences for the environment, human life, and European civilisation itself.

The first part of the film mostly consists of discussion between Rockwell, who’d been well aware of the potential dangers posed by the continued operation of his enterprise, US President Compson (Goodman), and various members of his government and military over what to do next.

Compson, dying of rectal cancer (or ‘cancer of the arse-hole,’ as he calls it) is a composite of Trump, Nixon, and almost all US Presidents in between. The decision to include fanatical Evangelical Christians praying over the President within this inner-circle was I suspect a late one, inspired by the insane tone of Trump’s second term.

The choice essentially resolves itself as being one between Nuking the iceberg, favoured by the government and military, and Rockwell’s preferred option of ‘managing the narrative.’, i.e. what matters is not ‘what happens’, but of how the story of what happens and why is decided upon and presented to the public.

The sole voice of reason inside this elite sanctum comes from Doctor Ganesh (Riz Ahmed), the representative of unbiased scientific reason and a warrior for truth, justice and environmental sustainability.

This is the basic premise of the film, but there are so many additional layers of storytelling at work here that it would be as misleading as the pre-movie marketing to say that it’s ‘about’ a giant iceberg heading towards Western Europe, or at least to say that it’s ‘only’ about that.

It’s these additional layers that make the film memorable.

The Shift

For the first the first forty minutes or so (others got it sooner) I had no idea of what I was watching. Two questions arose. 1) Is it dark comedy satire where the performances are deliberate caricatures and the humour is broad and farcical?

Certainly, serious subjects can be approached in that manner, with Kubrik’s Dr. Strangelove springing immediately to mind.

And 2), is this a disaster movie where you don’t really see the disaster, only reactions to it?

Again, that would be a valid artistic choice. I can’t think of an easy example, but I’m sure it’s been done.

But then we got that ‘Aha’ meta-narrative moment, or ‘moments’ in my case, and I realised I was watching something entirely different.

From then on, I was able to relax and fully immerse myself in the delightfully strange world of Digger.

Politics and Themes

The idea of elite narrative management, and the peculiar, though not exclusively American penchant for thinking every problem can be solved by the use of massive military firepower, will be familiar to anyone, Left or Right, who is even remotely politically aware.

But there’s a lot more besides.

Key is Rockwell’s unhinged presentation to the European parliament. Following on from Ganesh’s damning indictment of how the Rockwell’s of this world, and the political leaders who have been enabled and often funded by them, have put power and profit above everything, even the survival of the planet, the cornered tycoon decides that there is nothing for it but to tell the truth, that everything the good scientist has said is true, but…

There is certainly much truth in his defence that the reason he didn’t stop drilling once the likely consequences became clear was that nobody really wanted him too. Here he poses the question to the elites who pontificate about ‘sustainability’ at the likes of Davos, the WEF and the European parliament of whether they are prepared to give up on the private jets that transport them to such gatherings.

And to the average citizen of the advanced nations of the First World, to us, he asks if are we are willing to sacrifice our cars, our mobile phones, our twenty-four-hour Amazon deliveries.

There are legitimate criticisms to be made of these aspects of the politics of the film. The, ‘we all bare an equal responsibility’ arguments can mean letting big business off the hook to a certain extent; not everybody agrees with the mainstream ‘climate change’ narrative, which is largely taken as self-evidently true, and there are unrepresented optimists amongst us at least entertain the possibility that some of the environmental problems caused by economic development might, in a future, more rational society organised for the benefit of the many rather than the few, be solved by further technological development.

In any case, as I’ve indicated, Digger isn’t simply a warning to humanity or a cinematic treatise on the evils of corporate greed.  That narrative change raises other ideas, other questions and other themes.

There are too many to list here and, anyway, and It would be impossible to uncover every layer in a single viewing. That’s why it requires a second, perhaps a third or a fourth.

But of primary importance, for me, of those themes I did ‘get’ right of the bat was an exploration of the role of art in general and political art and satire concerning real-world major events recent enough to be fresh in the memory of the audience.

The film doesn’t provide answers. It raises questions with which the intelligent viewer will leave the cinema immediately mentally engaging with.

Some examples: Should that role be to challenge establish narratives? To entertain, educate and inform, ala Lord Reith’s dictum on the role of radio and television in the early days of the BBC? Does an artist have a responsibility to stick to the facts, such as they are known, or can they be amended in order to strengthen the impact of ‘the message’? What do audiences themselves want, do they want to challenged, or are they mostly happy to see recent history, no matter how terrible, parodied and presented as a black and white story of Good v Evil, complete with pantomime villains to be hissed, sneered and laughed at in a coming together of collective catharsis? Could it even be that populist political art in particular can be subtly nudged by the powers that be into being just one more form of controlled opposition?

To even raise such questions in a two-hour big budget movie is ambitious to say the least, but Digger pulls this off, and does so whilst, mostly, managing to be very entertaining.

The disconcerting discomfort I, and many others, felt during the first part of the movie was clearly all part of the plan.

Design and Performances

The film looks and sounds great, every frame cleverly designed. Despite being mainly set inside a series of rooms, the money is very much on the screen. Full credit to Inarritu, and to cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezeki for that, and to Cosmo Sheldrake for his great score.

This is a film where, I suspect, nothing is present by accident, everything has meaning, and that includes the choice of the name ‘Rockwell’ for the main character, though I’ll lave that to your consideration.

Cruise and Goodman are both superb, and almost unrecognisable behind mountains of prosthetics. Tom was spending six hours a time in make-up initially until, busy and resourceful man that he is, he worked with the artists in getting this down to an hour.

Some have suggested this is Cruise’ Oscar-bait movie, one he doesn’t mind taking a commercial hit on if it helps to show his acting chops and perhaps give him a shot at a gong. If that was true, which I doubt, reactions so far suggest he will fail, but so what? In the long run, this won’t do the latter part of his acting career any harm at all. After all, he’s now in his mid-fifties and can’t be dangling from helicopters forever.  In any case, he should be proud of his performance, i and I hope he is.

Outside of Cruise and Goodman, there is a large ensemble cast, and they all played their part in the film’s artistic success. Riz Ahmed is great as Ganesh, as is Jesse Plemons as Kenny, in a role that is small as measured by screen time, but crucial as to the complete vision of the film.

It could be argued that, apart from Sophie Wilde who is point perfect as Hannah, a part that is very much embedded in the deeper levels of the movie, there isn’t really much of a role for women. Sandra Huller and Emma Darcy both do what they have to do very well, but on first viewing at least, their parts didn’t seem to be strictly necessary, and neither did the sub-plots in which they were featured. But that’s an opinion that could change with another viewing or two.

Conclusion

Self-indulgent folly or modern masterpiece? Time will tell. I don’t even know what my own opinion will be a few years down the line.

But I do know that my first viewing, amongst an audience of four at 11am in a small seaside cinema, will live long in my memory.

Anybody who is a fan of intelligent, challenging cinema should watch this at least once, preferably without spoilers, but if you can’t be avoid them or can’t resist seeking them out, see it anyway. You might love it, or you might hate it, as many seem to do. But hate is at least a strong reaction, and any strong reaction has to be better than the ‘Meh’ that most modern movies elicit.

Digger is at the very least a bold experiment, and if it is the commercial disaster that’s being predicted, a prediction that seems as though it’s being confirmed by the receipts in so far, then you might not get another chance to see a major filmmaker given a Hollywood budget to do as he pleases.

Anthony C Green, October 2026