Neil Young Calls Box Office Flop 'Digger' "The Best Film I Have Ever Seen"

Neil Young has declared Digger "the best film I have ever seen." That's his verdict, verbatim, on a movie that has grossed roughly $38 million worldwide and needs $350 million just to break even, according to Variety.

Young published his endorsement last week in the Letters/Artists/Bandstand section of the Neil Young Archives Times-Contrarian, his own newspaper. The Tom Cruise vehicle, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, sits at 53 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics split on it. Young thinks they blew it.

What did Young actually write?

Plenty. "None of the reviews I have read describe this film adequately, in my opinion," Young wrote. "They seem to miss the overall effect and most of them are negative."

He didn't stop at complaint. He offered a viewing instruction:

"This film lives in a world of art. It is its own best review. Don't read any other reviews and forget this one before you see Digger."

Advice that conveniently deletes his own review before you buy a ticket. He also asked readers to forget his praise, then supplied several hundred more words of it.

Young framed the film as something other than a product. "I do not view this film as a commercial venture," he wrote. "Rather it is an artful film of our times. The things that are said in Digger are a direct reflection of today's political and social world."

He allowed one reservation. The film is "so full of artful expression and radical change-ups, that it may be too much to take in for those expecting a commercial film like we are used to today." A polite way of saying the audience walked in expecting Top Gun and got an auteur.

How big a flop is it?

By the numbers, considerable. Two weeks after its theatrical release, Digger has earned about $38 million worldwide against that $350 million break-even target reported by Variety. The film is trending toward one of the biggest box office disasters in recent film history.

There's a corporate footnote, too. As Young notes, Digger was the last film Warner Bros. released before its merger with Paramount. "As such, it is a great example of our times," Young wrote. A studio's final title before absorption, dying at the box office — he considers that part of the artwork.

Who else is defending it?

Young has company, if not comparably loud company. Jane Fonda, Guillermo Del Toro, and Anne Hathaway — Cruise's co-star in Days of Thunder 2 — have all voiced support for the film. Young, though, is perhaps Digger's biggest champion.

His closing pitch went full urgency: "It is today's world of politics and commercial overload. A must see for those frustrated by the lack of genuine engagement present in much, if not all, of today's offerings. Digger is not to be missed."

One of rock's most reliably contrarian voices has now staked his critical reputation on a film the marketplace has already rejected. Whether that moves anyone toward the box office is another matter — but when a legend of Young's stature calls something the best film he has ever seen, the argument, at least, is on the record.