Beyond Hollywood, the name "Tom Cruise" in the global film industry is a massive brand in itself, acting as a box-office guarantee that instills absolute trust in audiences. The biggest reason his films can be watched with unquestioning faith is that he pours his heart and soul into the acting and production of every project. Even when shooting massive action films boasting spectacular scale, he is widely renowned for personally performing perilous stunts at the risk of his life rather than relying entirely on flashy computer graphics or stunt doubles. Despite his considerable age of 64, his fierce passion for clinging to airplanes and jumping off rugged cliffs with his bare body evokes a noble respect for the medium of film beyond mere admiration. Perhaps, across the entire history of global cinema, Tom Cruise might be the last generation of true analog action masters who spare no physical effort, following in the footsteps of Jackie Chan.
Because this image as an extreme action hero who risks his life is so strongly ingrained in the public's mind, Tom Cruise's solid and fundamental dramatic acting skills tend to be somewhat overshadowed. In truth, he is not merely a star consumed by commercial entertainment blockbusters, but a brilliant actor capable of perfectly expressing the complex inner workings of human beings. In his youth, he swept critical acclaim by starring in a series of weighty, artistic films such as Born on the Fourth of July and Magnolia, and was touted as the strongest contender for Best Actor at prestigious film festivals including the Academy Awards. However, after repeatedly drinking the bitter cup of defeat at the threshold of winning an Oscar, he began to focus strictly on massive franchises aimed at mass appeal at some point. Many have speculated that he did not have much lingering attachment to acting awards or critical recognition, and instead chose the path of delivering the best entertainment to audiences visiting theaters.
Tom Cruise, who had been charging relentlessly toward the pinnacle of popcorn movies and action films for a while, has now returned to the screen for the first time in a long while in Digger, a film that openly espouses heavy artistic merit, taking on a role that commands the breathless attention of the world solely through "acting prowess." His appearance on the screen as the film begins is by no means the good face of the righteous and cool hero Tom Cruise that we have seen countless times and enthusiastically cheered for. He transforms perfectly into a completely new character—from his gaze to the subtle trembling of his mouth and his arrogant gait—embodying to the bone a businessman named "Rockwell," who is boundlessly greedy, immoral, and packed with arrogant overconfidence. His shocking acting transformation, equipping a despicable and chilling expression instead of a righteous smile, takes the audience's breath away from the beginning of the film and breathes in taut tension.
The title of the film, Digger, literally means an excavator or a person who digs deep into the earth, and at the same time, it is the symbolic alias of the protagonist "Rockwell," whom Tom Cruise acts with all his might. Here, the protagonist's surname "Rockwell" is a highly intentional and sharp naming choice that clearly acts as a metaphor for and evokes "Rockefeller," the legendary American oil tycoon who accumulated the most massive wealth in history. As can be immediately guessed from that name, Rockwell is a man of fierce obsession, frantic only about ceaselessly extracting the black gold buried deep underground to rake in enormous capital. He provides a stark and spine-chilling portrait of the most extreme and greedy monster of modern capitalism, one who lightly brushes off any moral criticism or severe environmental destruction controversies like flies if it means achieving his goals and profits.
Traditionally, in many commercial films and mass media, the heads of massive defense industries or oilmen wielding enormous wealth are mostly depicted as cold-blooded "bad guys" and absolute evils that must be eradicated. They are portrayed as shameless individuals who stop at nothing to maintain their astronomical profits and solid power, rather than universal human peace or the preservation of sublime nature, and do not hesitate to commit any unethical acts of destruction. In fact, the massive chemical energy industry and the defense industry are literally indispensable core sectors essential for maintaining the framework of the complex modern society and protecting national security. However, due to the severe environmental pollution and the tragedy of bloody conflicts that inevitably occur in the process of rolling that massive vested interest, they often become perfect and easy prey for moral condemnation by anyone.
The film Digger is a provocative work that very sharply and tenaciously digs into such a dual and contradictory gaze of modern society and unfolds it on the screen. This film never adopts a value-neutral attitude that ambiguously compromises on the boundary between good and evil, and it is entirely unhesitant in sharply satirizing vulgar capitalism that solely pursues the maximization of profit and the fatal blind spots of modern society. However, the strangest and most chilling aspect of this excellent work is that, even though it is clearly a narrative meticulously designed to harshly criticize and curse the protagonist's inhumane greed and immorality, the audience somehow finds themselves strangely persuaded by his sophistry and nodding along throughout the film. That dangerous and fiercely strange persuasiveness was entirely made possible by the divinely inspired acting of Tom Cruise, who breathed demonic vitality into the cold-blooded character of Rockwell.
We all morally raise our voices in unison that we must sublimely protect nature and preserve the environment in our daily lives, yet we are mired in a massive dilemma where we cannot live properly for a single day without the cheap convenience provided by fossil fuels and petroleum products. If all oil supply and drilling on Earth were to completely halt starting tomorrow, the earnest catastrophic effects of the world's logistics and transportation networks paralyzing would begin to appear everywhere in just about a month. And it is all too obvious that in less than a few months, the global systems and infrastructure firmly supporting modern civilization would completely collapse, facing a horrific shutdown that cuts off its lifeblood. Pushing this heavy and cold reality right in front of the audience's eyes, the film painfully points out how shallow and hypocritically contradictory the public's outcry is when they simply hide behind environment and justice, demanding an immediate halt to all extraction and forcing them to step down from the field.
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu, in order to prevent the audience from becoming overly immersed in the destructive story unfolding before their eyes, adopts a very unique and intellectual "play within a play" structure where another theatrical stage exists within the film, intentionally creating a critical distance that steps back between the narrative and the audience. Even as the characters on screen clash fiercely and spit blood, the camera suddenly pulls back, constantly reminding viewers that this is merely an elaborate play performed by actors on a narrow stage and a complete fiction. Just as the audience firmly believes that the character Rockwell is a real person breathing heavily in the world of the film and becomes immersed, they realize that what they are watching through the screen is a stage intentionally directed by someone, experiencing a confusing unfamiliarity of "What on earth is this?" And after breaking down the audience's complacent defense mechanisms like that, the film enters its latter half and strikes the back of the audience's heads again with another completely unexpected, heavy twist.
The most shocking truth of the latter half racing toward the conclusion is that the destructive narrative, which the audience had believed throughout to be merely an elaborately decorated fictional play, was actually a mirror of a horrific reality reconstructed based on meticulous research and a true story. Furthermore, the fear outside the screen multiplies exponentially as it is revealed that the film's setting is not the past we have already safely passed, but a chilling "near future" that will soon strangle us. While Rockwell forces oil drilling by unreasonably cutting costs in the middle of the fiercely cold Arctic Ocean, he arrogantly tramples on and ignores numerous eerie warnings from nature and the tearful dissuasions of field experts, ultimately pulling the trigger on an irreversible, massive disaster. Field engineers pleaded to immediately halt all excavation work as there was a terrible danger of the ground collapsing, but he thoroughly ignored this, fearing only massive cost losses, until a huge methane gas layer beneath the sea sets off a chain explosion, resulting in an uncontrollable, horrific catastrophe.
Triggered by this massive global explosion, a worldwide uproar and chaos unfold, and finally, even the US President personally steps in to pressure him and fiercely hold him accountable to clean up the uncontrollable situation. However, Rockwell, who never falls to his knees and retreats even in an inescapable crisis surrounded by enemies, rather than repenting and acknowledging his horrific mistakes, launches a mad counterattack toward the world outside the screen, asking, "Is not the root of all this horrific tragedy the ugly hypocrisy of you all who have madly and greedily consumed that oil?" In this long-take scene, Tom Cruise's 10-minute unbroken monologue, staring as if to devour the camera and pouring out without a pause, is truly the ultimate highlight that encapsulates all the messages of this film and a masterpiece scene that will go down in history. His acting shows a breathtaking, chilling grip to the point where one is completely persuaded and overwhelmed by Rockwell's soul-infused roar and twisted logic without even realizing it. It is a moment that makes one certain that the master director Iñárritu, who finally handed Leonardo DiCaprio his long-desired Oscar trophy, will this time instantly elevate Tom Cruise as the most likely and strongest Best Actor nominee at the Academy Awards. Although it is an ambitious blockbuster invested with an astronomical production budget of $130 million, it is currently suffering a miserable and lonely box-office failure in global theaters, to the point of being called a "flop" due to a lack of mass appeal. However, purely through that overwhelming 10-minute monstrous acting etched on the screen by Tom Cruise, this work is an unfortunate masterpiece that possesses ample qualification and value to be spoken of and re-evaluated in film history for a long time to come.
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