Why Half the Critics Got Tom Cruise's Digger Wrong | 570

Digger opened to $8 million on a nine-figure budget, and critics split almost exactly in half. Chris and Daniel think Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Tom Cruise made one of the best films of the year, and they spend this Moonshine Drive-In trying to work out why so many people hated it. Their suspicion is that the divide runs by age. Chris and a friend his age both loved it. Both of their teenage sons hated it. Daniel's theory is that younger audiences find films like Brazil and A Clockwork Orange on Tubi with fifty years of approval already attached, so liking something the whole internet calls garbage is a skill most of them never had to build.

Chris and Daniel also make the case that Digger is the answer to Don't Look Up. Adam McKay's film knows it's right and treats anyone who disagrees as the enemy. Digger opens as a broad cartoon of a Texas oil baron, then slowly asks you to feel for him, with Jesse Plemons delivering what Chris calls one of the best speeches ever put in a movie. They also get into why this is Cruise's biggest career risk since Magnolia, and why nobody greenlights this film without him attached.

Spoiler warning: the full plot and ending are discussed from 30:16. Everything before that is spoiler-free.

Mentioned in this episode

People

• Alejandro G. Iñárritu, director
• Tom Cruise, Jesse Plemons, John Goodman, Riz Ahmed, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg (cast)
• Nikos Kalaitzidis, VFX Supervisor, Digital Domain

Films referenced

Don't Look Up, Dr. Strangelove, Brazil, The Truman Show, Downsizing, Children of Men, Edge of Tomorrow, Magnolia, A Clockwork Orange, Fight Club, The Irishman, One Battle After Another

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