October 1, 2026 · Watch the official trailer
When you swing for the fences, sometimes you’re going to strike out. It’s an easily understood concept that filmmakers don’t want to talk about, especially as they seek the budget for their next project or attempt to bring an even more out-there idea to life. Studios often give longer leashes to celebrated auteurs and seem more willing to indulge in the bizarre eccentricities of established performers than take similar risks playing fast and loose with upstarts.
Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the Mexican filmmaker behind such richly textured and widely celebrated films as “Birdman” and “The Revenant,” makes his first major foray back into theaters in over a decade with the Tom Cruise-led “Digger,” a highly stylized blend of “There Will Be Blood” and “Dr. Strangelove” that rambles all over the place for more than two hours and feels less coherent than even its strange title or titular protagonist.
Deeply involved with themes of capitalism and environmentalism and molded in satire, “Digger” loosely follows the tale of an aging oil tycoon seeking to work with a dying American president to prevent an ecological disaster. At times, Iñárritu lifts liberally from the overly monochromatic and dry, farcical style of Wes Anderson to push an engaged audience toward the blatantly obvious political and social commentary of “Digger.” And yet, the film lingers in the metatextual nature of its narrative to such an overwhelming degree that it often becomes a crutch that devalues any sort of real plot or character development, leaving viewers largely shaking their heads as the continuous twists and turns reveal themselves for the sake of being twists and turns rather than having any actual significance.
In what may be his best chance for an Academy Award nomination for the remainder of his career, Tom Cruise dives fully into the role of Digger, and the highly expressive actor combines his usual sense of showmanship with a layered, weathered performance that feels far more earned than a film like this deserves. The primary reason audiences stay with “Digger” and don’t get up and leave the theater is Cruise’s ability to hold sway with the audience, and there is an emerging sense of self-referential reflection within Cruise as he engages with the material that may become clearer upon subsequent viewings.
Rather than simply hide behind the weight of prosthetics and an overly comical Southern drawl, Cruise finds the righteousness of his character and plays that self-assuredness not as a character flaw, but as an instinctual necessity that defines his worldview.
John Goodman seems to be fully on board with the black comedy of “Digger,” and his work as President Compson provides the clearest parallels to “Dr. Strangelove.” Goodman seems to revel in the ridiculousness of his character’s plight, not simply attempting to make a caricature of a real-life political figure, but rather crafting something in the Peter Sellers mold.
Riz Ahmed is largely winning as Ganesh, the head of Digger’s environmental team, and often provides the much-needed straight man to offset the goofy absurdity of Cruise’s Digger, while Sandra Hüller is vastly underutilized in a secondary subplot as Digger’s sister, Emma Rockwell.
As one might expect from an Iñárritu film, “Digger” is visually engaging from start to finish, with production design that is demonstrative in its world building, seeking to envelop the film in a postmodern, almost broken color palette that blends into the background just enough to allow Cruise’s exaggerated physicality and the performances around him to become the most vibrant elements within the frame.
Iñárritu reunites with his “Birdman” and “The Revenant” cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki to craft the visual world of the narrative using 1954 VistaVision cameras and Leica lenses that elongate and stretch the format to wider depths. This gives close-ups an almost supernatural intensity, as Cruise’s in-your-face performance increases in urgency and effectiveness through the gaze of Lubezki’s lens. Enveloping a single performer within the screen in such a stilted and off-center way helps reinforce the intentionality of the dry humor, especially in a pivotal second-act sequence where Digger nearly transforms into a Gordon Gekko-style “greed is good” figure, delivering an impassioned defense of his worldview with such grandiosity that the framing itself begins to undercut the seriousness of what he is saying.
On paper, “Digger” should be a strong awards-season contender, though its more avant-garde narrative and middling reception will likely push the film out of contention in almost every category. There may be some opportunity for Cruise to receive a nomination almost as a career-achievement acknowledgment rather than specifically for his strong work here. Casual audiences will likely find Iñárritu’s overtly dry, sardonic humor too inaccessible to seek out theatrically, although some ardent cinephiles intrigued by the concept and Cruise’s strong performance may find a trip to the cinema worth the price of admission.
Leave a Reply