Digger Grade:A Dr. Diglove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Climate Change It is impossible to discuss acclaimed director Alejandro G. Iñárritu's new film "Digger" without making a direct comparison to Stanley Kubrick's cold war masterpiece, "Dr. Strangelove". Both films are comedies meant to parody the two darkest threats Human civilization has ever faced. In 1964 Dr. Strangelove made fun of America's fear of nuclear war, while in 2026
Digger is tackling the threat of global warming and climate change. What these two threats have in common is the film director's belief that either disaster could be set into motion by a small group of inept, bumping fools whose incompetence can be as humorous as it is tragic if told as a black comedy. Watching Digger there can be no doubt that Iñárritu is a big fan of Stanley Kubrick. He isn't just inspired by him. It's fair to say that Digger is the most Kubrickian film made since Kubrick's death (and I've waited a long time to say that).
In Digger Iñárritu copies Kubrick's unique camera style using stationary cameras, brutalist sets, and long takes that descend into carefully choreographed chaos. Like Kubrick, every detail is painstakingly studied. Nothing was improvised. He even filmed Digger in 35mm Vista Vision, a film format popular in the late 1950's and early 60's that gives it a distinctly dated look.
Digger's depiction of an incompetent president and joint chiefs bumbling their way through a combination of absurdly poor decisions (often made far too late), and pathetic prayers to the Almighty to save Humanity from what they have broken comes straight out of Strangelove. What doesn't come out of Strangelove is Tom Cruise's character, Digger Rockwell, a man with more ego than intellect who is willing to endanger the entire human race for the sake of money and power.
Digger has no equal in Kubrick's films - No one got elected in 60's politics with that much shallow ambition. He's a product of our 21st century and one who modern audiences will immediately recognize. If Digger Rockwell doesn't represent Donald Trump, he is someone very much like him (when Strangelove was being filmed, John F Kennedy was president, and protests like the "No Kings" movement were sixty years in the future). For everything that's dark about Strangelove, Digger goes much further and digs much deeper than Strangelove ever dared.
In fact, Strangelove seems almost tame in comparison. I really can't say much more about the plot of Digger without giving away some of Iñárritu's most clever and well-earned surprises. Suffice to say this may be the most META film ever made. The plot's short, dark spiral from incompetence to disaster unfolds in the opening half hour, leaving the audience with another ninety minutes to figure out what is real and what isn't (this is the man who brought us "Birdman”).
Does it all work? No. Does most of it work? Probably not. But enough of it works for Digger to be brilliant, and orders of magnitude above anything else released so far this year. It's a film that will certainly offend many, upset most, and disturb everyone - but isn't that the point of a black comedy?