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Diggers
Metascore
66 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 18
  3. Negative: 1 out of 18
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  1. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Manny Lewis
    100
    Ultimately, the movie is about finding contentment during tough times.
  2. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    80
    Rudd is sweet and funny; Ron Eldard and Josh Hamilton are great as the town's aimless stud muffin and philosophizing pothead, respectively. But the movie belongs to Ken Marino, who is riotously funny.
  3. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    80
    A quintessential American independent movie, Diggers isn't going to change the history of cinema. But it has integrity. It feels like life.
  4. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    75
    What separates Diggers from its kin - notably the Ed Burns movies - is the testosterone balance of its masculine script and Dieckmann's sensitive direction. Maybe we need more buddy movies by women.
  5. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    75
    This seriously funny group portrait of third-generation clam diggers (and their wives and sisters) is fresh as today's catch and about as tasty. Its '70s soundtrack positively swaggers.
  6. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    75
    Likably low-key, character-driven dramatic comedy.
  7. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Nathan Rabin
    75
    As befits a heartfelt ode to working-class values, Diggers puts in lots of hard, honest work that finally pays off in a wholly predictable yet unexpectedly moving conclusion.
  8. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kevin Crust
    70
    Archetypal characters and somewhat formulaic plot notwithstanding, Diggers has the conviction to avoid tying things up with a bow and allows us the privilege to imagine where its denizens will go afterward.
  9. Variety
    Reviewed by: Dennis Harvey
    70
    Basically "Diner" in wading boots, it feels very familiar in conceit and unadventurous in execution, but offers the undeniable pleasures of a well-observed, well-played modest seriocomedy.
  10. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    70
    Ken Marino, who plays the silliest of the diggers, wrote the script, and when it isn't straining after elegiac moments, it's fresh and unpredictable.
  11. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    63
    The best thing in Diggers, besides the close-up of the back end of the Vista Cruiser, is the interplay between Rudd and Tierney. They really do seem like brother and sister, adults yet not entirely grown up.
  12. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    63
    Ken Marino of "Dawson's Creek," who wrote the somewhat autobiographical script, plays one of Rudd's pals.
  13. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    63
    The movie is strong and holding as long as it's shambling about in the Montauk dusk; when Dieckmann has to bring things to a resolution, Diggers turns ordinary -- sweet, but you've seen it many times before.
  14. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    58
    Overall, Diggers is like an Ed Burns movie -- but with fishing gear.
  15. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Ethan Alter
    50
    This tale has been told so often (in fact, its roots can be traced back to Fellini's 1953 coming-of-age classic "I Vitelloni") the only way to keep it remotely fresh is to keep changing the time period and the professions of the principal characters.
  16. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Pete Vonder Haar
    50
    Diggers isn't a bad film, but the underlying premise - the longing one feels to escape from a dead-end, small town life - has been so beaten to death in the movies that no amount of accurate 70s design or subtlety in the performances can hide the fact.
  17. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    50
    Never quite breaks out of its talky inertia.
  18. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    25
    Sitting through Diggers is so tedious that you might find yourself envying the clam diggers. At least they get to be outdoors.
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User Score
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No user score yet- Awaiting 1 more rating

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 1 out of 2
  1. RitB.
    1
    Try to imagine a conversation about world events between Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Does that sound like a non-event, something that could induce a coma in anyone with an IQ in the double-digits?? If you can imagine that, then you'll have an idea of how dull this movie is. Avoid it, unless you are looking for an insomnia cure.… Full Review »
  2. ChadS.
    8
    Zoey(Lauren Ambrose), a vacationing New Yorker, compliments Hunt(Paul Rudd), a local clam-digger, a man she just had sex with, about his way with the camera. Since Zoey calls the shots in this relationship, we suspect that the uptown girl is patronizing him; a gilded bone tossed by the sophisticate(who is at liberty to judge about art because she's seen the inside of a museum) to the seafaring dog for showing an interest in a highbrow endeavor such as photography. Zoey probably finds his hobby adorable. When she puts an end to their summer "fling"(Zoey's word, not Hunt's), we don't feel like it's the end of his world; because "Diggers", unlike a lot of indie films about men and women in small-towns, doesn't treat their lives away from "where the action is" as drudgery, as time spent in purgatory. Hunt and his friends never seem pathetic, more importantly, they're never treated as the butt of a joke. Case in point, the harried lives of Lozo(Ken Marino) and Julie(Sarah Paulson), a married couple with too many kids, whose voices are rarely pitched at your standard conversational volume. They're riotously funny, but we're laughing with them, not at them. "Diggers" respects these men, the last of the independent fishermen, and we(who may not hail from New York, or L.A.) respect "Diggers" for showing their warts(recreational drug use, lack of a formal education) while allowing them to maintain their dignity in such trying times.… Full Review »
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