Is ‘Digger’ the Tom Cruise Movie We’ve Been Waiting For? Plus: Our Top 10 Tom Cruise Performances.

The Big Picture

Sean Fennessy and Amanda Dobbins dissect Alejandro González Iñárritu's highly divisive new film 'Digger,' starring Tom Cruise as an oil tycoon whose drilling project triggers a global

Key takeaways

• Tom Cruise delivers a transformative performance in 'Digger,' utilizing heavy prosthetics and a Texas accent for a bombastic stage role, while also showcasing rare quiet introspection during backstage sequences.
• The film's central twist reveals that the apocalyptic oil baron narrative is actually a rehearsed play called 'Fossil Fools,' adding a meta-layer about art, reality, and ecological despair.

Main topics

• Digger movie review and plot analysis
• Tom Cruise performance and career evolution

Notable quotes

"Digger is not a masterpiece. It's the most annoying movie I've ever seen."

Conclusion

The episode concludes that while 'Digger' may not be a flawless cinematic triumph, its audacious structure and

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) you Speaker 1 (0:15) I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Speaker 2 (0:16) Amanda Dobbins. And this is Speaker 1 (0:17) the Big Picture, a conversation show about Digger. Today on the show, we are digging into Digger, the new apocalyptic comedy from Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu starring Tom Cruise. Longtime listeners of this show know that we have been fascinated by Cruise and have longed for him to return to dramatic parts in original stories. We finally got our wish with this movie, which is likely to be among the most divisive of the year. Amanda and I will talk about the film's grasp at relevance and satire. its decorated cast, and the unique storytelling approach it takes. Then we will get into our cruise bag by sharing each of our 10 favorites of his performances. Digger is as big a cruise acting showcase as we're likely going to get for the foreseeable future, and so we'll also take a look at yet another very crowded and star-laden best actor race. We'll get into it all right after this. Speaker 1 (1:06) Okay. This is probably the least amount of information that we've ever shared with one another. Yes. About a movie in the history of this show. I Speaker 2 (1:16) did not even open the outline. You kind of gave me the bullet points of the rubrics. Yes. You know the Speaker 1 (1:24) run of show today. I Speaker 2 (1:25) know Speaker 1 (1:25) the run of Speaker 2 (1:25) show. And you gave me the option. And we were talking about it outside with friends. We've talked about it like around each other with other people, but have not shared anything. And I think. Part of that. For me, at least. I mean, we're saving it for the show, but part of this show is going to be me trying to figure out how I feel. I said last week or earlier this week that I've just been all over the place day to day in how I think about this film and what I think works and what I think don't work. Let me just say right now, not a masterpiece. Speaker 1 (1:59) Yeah, Speaker 2 (1:59) it's not a five star, not my favorite film of the year. And. So Speaker 1 (2:06) Digger, not a masterpiece. Speaker 2 (2:07) Digger, not a masterpiece. You guys want to do a Chiron in the booth? Sure. M Speaker 1 (2:12) -Amanda Dobbins, comma, the big picture. Speaker 2 (2:15) I do feel confident in saying, no matter where I net out, on good or bad or worthwhile or the biggest embarrassment to hit Warner Brothers since the last embarrassment, that this is one of the most annoying movies I've ever seen. I found the experience so irritating. And the movie knows that I will find it irritating and anticipates that. And sometimes I think it anticipates in a clever way and I want to give it credit. But then I think about it and I don't want to give it credit. I'm not really sure. I can't tell whether I liked the fact that it was annoying or not. But that is the two things you can say is not a masterpiece. Okay. And the most annoying movie I've ever made. You just jumped right into it. I haven't even, no Speaker 1 (3:04) details about the movie here. Sorry. We have no summary. Sorry. Who else is in the film? You said. You wanted to launch in. Speaker 2 (3:09) We've been waiting. We haven't talked about it. Speaker 1 (3:11) That is a testimony, I think, to some of the urgency. of the, maybe not the material, but the circumstances of the movie. Speaker 2 (3:20) And Speaker 1 (3:21) the fact that it is the kind of thing that we've been waiting a very long time for. And so it kind of demands a feeling. I'll give just a few Speaker 2 (3:29) bullet Speaker 1 (3:30) points before I share some of my thoughts. It is directed, produced, and co-written by Inaritu. Speaker 2 (3:35) Co Speaker 1 (3:35) -written with Alexander Denilaris, Nicholas Giacobone, and Sabina Berman. These are all people he's worked with before on screenplays. It's shot by Emmanuel Lebesgue, Chivo. This is a return for Chivo to a Inaritu film. They took some time off on Bardo. The music is by Cosmo Sheldrake. In addition to Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hueller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Robert John Burke, Emma Darcy, Sophie Wilde, and Jesse Plemons appear in the film. It is about the most powerful man in the world, an oil tycoon named Digger Rockwell. racing to prove he can be humanity's savior before the disaster that he has unleashed destroys everything. I liked this movie. I have significant reservations about it. Yeah. And I do identify somewhat with the... I'm not sure that I found this movie irritating, but I certainly saw it attempting to provoke me and to kind of nudge me in the ribs pretty frequently. And whether or not it's unpleasantness... is a feature or a bug is, I think, part of a wider conversation about Ina Ritu in general. Yeah. Speaker 2 (4:42) That Speaker 1 (4:43) there is something very knowing about his bombacity and his willingness to say, I'm rubbing your face in it, deal with it. Speaker 2 (4:50) Mm-hmm. Speaker 1 (4:51) I frequently dislike that in the films. This film has an antidote to that. Speaker 2 (4:57) It anticipates it. Which is Tom Cruise. Yeah. Speaker 1 (5:00) It does have Tom Cruise doing something we've not seen him do in a very long time, if ever. And so... I think I ultimately come out on the movie as mixed positive. I've only seen it once and it was a week ago. And I've been reading some of the reviews this morning and people have got their knives out for this movie, which I find really interesting. And that has not typically been the case for Ina Ritu in the first wave of reaction for most of his films all the way up till Bardo. And I don't see this as like a hateable, disastrous nightmare of a movie at all. I think there are some things about it that are fascinating, some things about it that are really well drawn and executed. There are also some things about it that are so solipsistic and obvious and frustrating that it's very hard to just throw my heart into it because it's not that kind of a movie. Speaker 1 (5:48) I'm happy it exists. I'm happy that I saw it. I want to see it again. Speaker 2 (5:53) It is interesting. And I have been thinking about it and been going up and down in how I feel about it. I think my initial reaction was it's really, really annoying. And I think I like it because it does anticipate. It is intentionally provoking. And, you know, the showmanship of any in a read to film like is. is very purposeful and very directed in this film in a way that is cheeky, but also does know what you're going to respond to and is trying to bring the audience along. It's like very, very, very self-involved film, which all films are in their own way. It's just that this is self-involved in a Nitori to style, which means that it is incredibly fussy and Speaker 1 (6:43) it is often almost, it's often like very remedial. Speaker 2 (6:46) You know, and the writing and the, hey, this is the point and this is what we're trying to do here is very, very on the nose and in your face, as you said. But it does have a couple tricks up its sleeve. It has Tom Cruise. And even the Tom Cruise performance is very interesting. And he gets some opportunities to do what our friend who we were just talking with thinks he's doing. You know, he is in full old makeup prosthetics doing like the Texas voice with an animatronic cat. And then there are a couple of times in the movie where I was like, oh, and sometimes because. He was unlocking some larger version of the bombastic performance and sometimes because he was the Tom Cruise that I remember from 1993. And we're marks for that. I think there's Speaker 1 (7:41) one more phase in his performance that we really haven't seen before either, which we can talk about when we get deeper into the story too, that is fascinating. Now look, we're just big fans of Cruise. I think we acknowledge that he's a very strange guy, you know, and that time seems maniacal. his extracurricular activities are often frequently upsetting. But as a screen presence, I think he's one of Speaker 2 (8:03) the Speaker 1 (8:03) most fascinating people that's ever appeared in movies. I love watching him in movies. I have really enjoyed the Mission Impossible era. While acknowledging, it's been fairly one note in terms of what it's asking of him. And we fell in love with him in the 90s, watching him go to extremes in a lot of different kinds of movies with a lot of different kinds of filmmakers. This movie actually asks him to do many things that he really hasn't done before. He has done prosthetics before. He has done accent work, but he has not done them in quite this way. Maybe we should talk about what the movie is first. Okay. At least on the surface. Okay. Speaker 2 (8:38) And Speaker 1 (8:38) then we can talk about what it is when we get into spoiler territory. Speaker 2 (8:41) Yeah, which we're going to do. We Speaker 1 (8:44) have to do it to have a proper conversation about the film. Speaker 2 (8:46) And Speaker 1 (8:46) I Speaker 2 (8:46) know there are going to be a lot of looky-loos. Who just want to know what we think about this and start the episode. And I'm begging you to, if you're that curious, stop now. Go see the movie. Maybe you'll be mad at us, but at least you can then listen to the rest of the conversation. I would Speaker 1 (9:01) encourage people to watch the film because this is a risk-taking mainstream studio movie with a big movie star. And I ask for this on every episode. Like, if I'm not actually saying Speaker 2 (9:11) there's Speaker 1 (9:11) some value to this, then I would be a hypocrite. It doesn't make the movie perfect. It doesn't even make it great. But it does make it... Once again, Speaker 2 (9:19) not a masterpiece. Not a Speaker 1 (9:20) masterpiece, no. I think it's worthy of people's time. And they can come to their own conclusions. But the movie does begin as what it looks like in the trailers, which is a very outsized, Dr. Strangelove-esque, madcap satire about a wealthy oil baron who's got a drilling project in Greenland. And his project, we learn via video call, leads to glacier displacement and ice shelves. that we soon learn will threaten areas of Northern Europe. And this is, you know, potentially putting millions of lives in danger. And so it sends this man who is essentially living alone with his servants and his animatronic cat Speaker 2 (9:58) into Speaker 1 (10:00) a kind of a tizzy. And we learned that this man who is this very powerful baron is actually more powerful even than the U.S. government. You know, that he's able to call meetings in his private home that everyone kind of... bends the knee to him, that the president asks him, well, what would you do, Digger? And... He uses this power as an opportunity to... Speaker 1 (10:21) I think, like, maybe live his truth in a very strange way. Speaker 1 (10:28) That's shaded by something underneath the surface of the movie that we won't get to yet. But the movie doesn't really turn specifically to like what the U.S. government is going to do about it. It turns to what Digger and the U.S. government is going to do about this crisis. And it really stays in his perspective the entire time. And it shows us that I think you used the word remedial and I think that's right. There's something very simplistic about this component of the movie. Speaker 2 (10:51) Yeah. The Speaker 1 (10:51) satire of the movie. It's just like, well, billionaires run the world. Yeah. And they're vainglorious assholes. And every decision they make is about their own ego and their own desire to win and conquer, which is the kind of sentiment that I think we've shared on this show before. But I'm not sure needs to have an entire two hour Fantasia devoted to it. And Speaker 2 (11:10) so and it is played your as you said, it starts with him alone with this animatronic cat and he is doing, you know. the Tropic Thunder-style performance at the beginning. And in classic Ina Ritu fashion, it's a very, like, designed, stylized apartment with, once again, an animatronic cat. And the cameras are moving just so everything is very controlled, specific. And as the characters start coming in, it is incredibly heightened. And it's satire that is... beyond satire like they're they're trying to be funny and the it's very um Speaker 2 (12:00) Like they're high on their own supply essentially is the way that they're doing the performance and it's broad and you can understand what they're doing, but it's not, it's not sophisticated in any way. You're like, oh, this is, you guys are all really, really at 15 and this is, everyone's trying too hard. Yeah. Speaker 1 (12:20) I think, I think. About 20 minutes into the movie, you start asking yourself, like, well, is this just kind of a swing and a miss at a Kubrickian or Terry Gilliam style movie where you've got a huge idea. And in order to execute that idea, you need these really outsized performances and you need this lavish production design and this sense of like, it's almost like a hyper world because you're living inside of a billionaire's castle. Speaker 1 (12:45) Then the movie does shift. Speaker 2 (12:46) Yeah. Speaker 1 (12:47) And I think, I mean, do you want to speak about the shift now? It's about 20 to 30 minutes into the movie, and most of what I've described is what happens in the film all the way up until that point. So if you don't want to know anything else about this movie, as Amanda said, you should go out and check it out. The tricky thing about this is that not a lot of people are going to see this movie. It's Speaker 2 (13:08) not Speaker 1 (13:08) really tracking to do well. And Speaker 2 (13:10) it's not at all commercial. Yeah, it's just not. It's not. Speaker 1 (13:13) And yet there's something kind of fascinating about it. So, you know, apologies to Jack Sanders, who hasn't seen this film and now is putting earmuffs on. Speaker 2 (13:20) Yeah. Speaker 1 (13:21) He's Speaker 2 (13:22) trying to leave the room. We see you. OK, Jack, go, go, go. Speaker 1 (13:26) In the aftermath of this big meeting of the president and generals and the vice president and Digger. And Riz Ahmed, who plays the sort of head of his environmental group that oversees whether or not catastrophes will be happening on Rockwell Enterprises Watch. Speaker 2 (13:42) And Sandra Speaker 1 (13:42) Tuller, Speaker 2 (13:42) his sister, is there yelling loudly about how he's ruining her environmental startup. Speaker 1 (13:49) Yes, her alternative energy company. Speaker 1 (13:53) We watch a sequence in which the president, played by Goodman, and Cruz as Digger are looking out onto a completely constructed facade that looks like a view out his back window. And all of a sudden, a tree falls over and a large man appears in the background. And it becomes clear that this is a set. It's Speaker 2 (14:15) a Speaker 1 (14:15) constructed set. This is a constructed world. This constructed world is actually a very... expensively mounted play. And that the play is a play about a real life man named Digger Rockwell and that Tom Cruise is playing Digger Rockwell and also an actor playing Digger Rockwell. And we get a handful of flashes throughout the film where the production, which is essentially a rehearsal, it's a sort of day of rehearsal. Yeah, Speaker 2 (14:45) it's the tech rehearsal, I think. Speaker 1 (14:48) is A kind of dual crisis. It's a crisis that shows us something in the world, really what's happened to the world through the means of storytelling. And also a kind of personal crisis for this actor, which unfurls throughout the movie. Speaker 2 (15:04) And Speaker 1 (15:05) so Cruise gets to play two different parts. And I gotta say, when they revealed initially that it was a play, Speaker 2 (15:13) I Speaker 1 (15:13) was a little bit skeptical. And then as soon as we see Cruise behind the scenes, I was very engaged. I was... It completely caught me by surprise. And having a conversation like this on a podcast kind of ruins that for so many people. And I apologize if that's something they didn't want to know. We did our best. It hugely elevates the movie for me. A thousand percent. And it was fascinating to learn that this was not the plan. That this was an idea that they came to much later. That originally it sounds like the film was mostly just Digger. Speaker 2 (15:42) Okay. And Speaker 1 (15:43) that this artifice, this story underneath, was developed over time. And I think it really deflates the movie in a very special way. Because if all they were trying to accomplish was billionaires will destroy the world and we're fucked, Speaker 2 (16:00) that's Speaker 1 (16:00) just not a very interesting idea for a movie. That's something we already know about. And this second layer, I think, kind of had my head spinning a bit about what it is that the movie is trying to say. And maybe it doesn't really have anything to say. But I at least spent more time trying to unpack. what it was trying to accomplish than I ever would have if it was just... you know, this kind of Terry Gilliam in sheep's clothing kind of movie, you know? Speaker 2 (16:27) Absolutely. No, I think the twist is the only thing, the twist and what it allows in Cruise's performance and the way that it allows you to think more about. The way that it justifies all of the effort that you can see in the film because they are putting on a show. So you're like, you're fine if it's suddenly if everyone's suddenly like three sizes too big and everything looks a little too hyper stylized because it is examining the process of making that in the context of the movie. So we like meta things. There are going to be a lot of people who just. tune out as soon as this reveal happens. And I think in my screening, which was mostly an influencer screening, there was a lot of, what? As soon as it happened. But to me, it's genius because the reveal comes at the exact moment where I was ready to write it off. Speaker 1 (17:21) I was just like, Speaker 2 (17:22) well, this is done. And I was like, can I leave? What can I accomplish in this time? And I think the movie Speaker 1 (17:28) knows that. I think it is artfully timed. Speaker 2 (17:30) So in that sense, I want to give it credit for it. Even though on the flips, if I think too much about that, I'm like, well, it is kind of annoying that you're trying to set me up this way just to poke me and make me want to not be here anymore. And what is even that, what is provoking me with this like, you know, farcical idea of billionaires are bad? Like, I know, I know. And like the earth is screwed. Also, I know. Like, what is that? Well, it's particularly Speaker 1 (18:00) jarring because the movie is full of jokes, but not funny. And that's a problem. You know, like if the movie was just attempting to be that very broad satire, but you're not laughing, it's kind of valueless. Now, after we get this reveal and we see, you know, Cruise's character as sort of an actor in crisis trying to make this right and kind of a subterranean component of the movie that is very important, I think, is his kind of complex relationship with the director who's played by Sophie Wilde. And they're pushing against each other a lot. And there's this kind of friction about what's the right way to play this. And it reflects our struggles with as we're watching it where it feels very broad and it feels not right. It feels like it's almost not. And I don't know if Ina Ritu gets this. I think this is the intention. It almost doesn't matter ultimately. It's how you receive it. that character saying, this feels off to me. Speaker 2 (18:51) This isn't how this would happen. Yeah. It Speaker 1 (18:54) reflects our own sense of a theatrical reality. When you're in the theater, you want something to feel real enough that you're swept away and then you can accept the absurdity of it while you're inside of the story, as opposed to it feeling like a series of paper dolls being moved around the chessboard. And the movie does feel like that. On the flip side, when you go to see live theater, The performances are bigger because they have to be louder because they're playing for the cheap seats. It's a different performance style. It's not the subtlety of screen acting where a look conveys everything. Everybody kind of is yelling at each other in a stage play in some respects. And so I thought this totally complicated the movie in a way that I really enjoyed. But then the movie does an interesting thing where it then goes back to just being Digger for a long stretch of time again. And I think it gets more interesting, but also... a lot of the jokes don't hit. And there are times where you're enervated watching it and you're almost waiting to know why they pulled us out of the movie. And I was surprised by... the paucity of real scenes with the cruise actor. And I'm curious like what you think about that. I think we get to, is it four times when we see him out of it? Maybe five. Speaker 2 (20:10) I couldn't count at this point. But yeah, he's in the dressing room a couple times. He has a couple standoffs with the director. Speaker 1 (20:19) And Speaker 2 (20:19) then sort of the final after the show wraps scene. The other thing that it does, and I couldn't tell whether this was sloppy or really interesting, which is the experience of watching this film. Speaker 1 (20:36) It is. Speaker 2 (20:37) is that the way that it segues between the real life and the onstage, the production, is through the backstage screens and the live cameras of what's on. So sometimes you are watching the stage production on a TV screen next to Jesse Plemons, who is one of the producers, and we'll come back to him. Speaker 2 (21:05) And then you kind of go into the camera. So the boundaries between what you're seeing and what's real and what's on a screen and what's on a stage are blurred. And I guess that is purposeful. I think it's pretty artfully done. Yeah. Speaker 1 (21:19) Yeah. I... Speaker 1 (21:21) I think what it does is it rips open the can and says like, well, what's really inside this story? And I'm not sure that it ever totally gets us to a satisfying meal inside of the can. But getting my brain going and being relieved that it wasn't just the movie that was marketed to me had Speaker 2 (21:38) a Speaker 1 (21:39) real power. And I think for some people, they may not like that reveal or it may not really have any impact on them. And I think that that accounts for some of the negativity that you're seeing about the movie. Speaker 1 (21:52) I'm trying to figure out if this is a movie that feels that its message is important, that its cynicism is important. That its message about cynicism is important I don't I don't quite know because the movie goes more or less where you might imagine it's going to go and there's a Segment in the middle of the movie that I think ultimately makes the movie worth seeing yeah, but At the conclusion of everything. Speaker 2 (22:20) Well, you're Speaker 1 (22:21) left with like something that is common in inner retus films, which is the sort of like you're fucked. What are you gonna do about it? Speaker 2 (22:27) You are. There is also an element to me, and I don't know whether, again, whether the film is aware of it or whether I just reflected it on it. In this movie, there is a little bit and also like, and we're all dancing while Rome burns. And there is something about this thing that we are doing, both the production that's within this film, but then also this film that we're making. Speaker 2 (22:52) Does not matter has not changed the way that people think about the world has not changed the world that we live in. You know, I think the closing shots of the film and the credit sequence are some of the more. I was, again, I was surprised by them and sort of affected and they seemed to me a signal of the film's understanding outside of its like tiny little jewel box in a way that I kind of want to give it credit for. Speaker 1 (23:18) Yeah, I wonder if the idea that this kind of storytelling has emotional value, you know, the idea of pointing at something that has happened historically that set us off course as a civilization and then having some comfort in that. Speaker 2 (23:35) By Speaker 1 (23:35) experiencing, you know, the grandeur and the sadness and the absurdity of all of those things. Right. Does that make us feel better? Is it a temporary salve from the chaos outside? Yeah. It is a pretty, these are grand ideas he's going for. I mean, he's always going for grand ideas. And a lot of times they're a little bit too obvious to be entertaining or to be, feel valuable to me. I think the movie that it's most similar to, I know you just rewatched last night, is Birdman. Both tonally. And in terms of its strident efforts to wow you with its very physical kind of handmade production. Speaker 2 (24:11) Sure. And also production within a Speaker 1 (24:13) production. Yeah, that's right. And self Speaker 2 (24:14) -doubt of the main character in terms of whether what this person is doing is valuable. Yes. And whether salvation can be possible for this character or for the world at large through Speaker 1 (24:28) art. Speaker 2 (24:28) And two movies Speaker 1 (24:28) sharply trained on a male. actor, star, figure. Speaker 2 (24:33) And a male actor dealing in one way or another with his past movie star successes. And there is a lot of real life meta text brought to both of these. Yes, Speaker 1 (24:44) what this movie means to Cruise and what Cruise means to this movie. Likewise for Michael Keaton playing a superhero some years after playing Batman. The thing with Birdman, which as I've said before, I really enjoyed the first time I watched it. And then the second time I watched it and... thought about what its targets were and what its intentions were, it just felt way less impactful to me, was those targets are just really small. You know, they're Hollywood, they're male fragility, they're the place of critics in our culture. These like very kind of modest, kind of like grudge-bearing targets. This movie's targets are way bigger than that. It's true. Speaker 2 (25:18) I was really taken aback on my rewatch of how much time Emma Stone's character spends talking about what goes viral on the internet. Mock Twitter. I mean, but it's like an Aaron Sorkin level of obsession with very specific blog posts that are just, it makes it feel so dated, so small, so petty. Yeah. And, but it was funny that watching Birdman made... tipped me back on the negative side of Digger for a little while because I was like, oh, this does have all the DNA of the things that I don't like about Ina Ritu films replicated in some of the same ways. And again, I just find the experience and the particularness. I did wonder if this is how other people feel about Wes Anderson movies. I just Speaker 1 (26:05) think there's a huge difference. To me, Ina Ritu is constantly settling scores. He's using his work. as a way to kind of thunder back on what he feels is unjust. I don't see Wes Anderson doing that at Speaker 2 (26:16) all. Speaker 1 (26:16) No, Speaker 2 (26:16) I Speaker 1 (26:16) don't. Speaker 2 (26:16) Wes Anderson is just very closed off in his own world. Speaker 1 (26:18) In the Speaker 2 (26:18) design, they're very Speaker 1 (26:19) similar. Speaker 2 (26:20) Yeah. But it just kind of, you know, I respond to the emotionality and the ideas in Wes Anderson movies so differently than I do to Ina Ritu's movies, which I agree are... Petty and reductive and just, I mean, they just feel like the op-ed page of any major newspaper yelling at me all of the time. And I don't read op-eds for that reason. So just really, really kept an obvious. But some people do seem to respond to both op-ed pages and Nina Ritu. So I just, there is something, there is something polarizing about him in a different way. You're right that Digger just takes on things larger than the internet. Speaker 1 (27:00) And whether or not it's like worthy of those big swings is debatable. Again, I'd like to see the movie again to get a better sense of how I feel about it. That sense of surprise, though, that played out through the movie was worthy to me. And again, the reason to see the movie is that Tom Cruise is making a lot of choices in this movie. And there are times... When he does become full. There's a big centerpiece in the film. Yeah. Speaker 2 (27:24) When Speaker 1 (27:24) we go back to Digger's story. Speaker 2 (27:26) Where Speaker 1 (27:27) he's asked to testify, essentially, in front of a large tribunal of some kind. And when we saw the movie clips back in April, I compared it to a Roy Anderson movie. And it looks that way with like these dusty gray white men. These kind of monochromatic, washed out backdrops and costume decisions. And after Riz Ahmed's character does what he is asked to do, which is to in public excoriate his boss's behavior and the work that he's done in oil drilling and explains that he is responsible for this massive ecological crisis, Digger then enters the arena and... Speaker 1 (28:07) Cruz uncorks one. It's just he's a great yelling actor. He's not a subtle actor. He never has been. He's a showman. He's Vince from The Color of Money. He is Daniel Caffey barking back at Jack Nicholson. He's maniacal Ethan Hunt. And he's doing it with Jerry Jones' accent, wearing, I guess, a red velvet cowboy suit and a hat. And he delivers this speech about... why he does what he does and why the world needs him and why the world needs oil. It Speaker 2 (28:41) is essentially a 10-minute version of you need me on that wall. You want me on that wall, which I was just... I Speaker 1 (28:48) thought of the same thing. It's his Jack Nicholson moment. Of course we Speaker 2 (28:50) did. And I was grinning up at the screen. And listen, again, it's like it's a room full of real people, not CGI people. Thank you Speaker 1 (28:57) so much. Speaker 2 (28:57) Though there are Speaker 1 (28:57) dummies very specifically placed throughout. Almost was like mocking the idea of this tribunal. Speaker 2 (29:02) Totally. But so, you know, it's big in