‘Digger’ Review: Tom Cruise Explodes In Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Surprising And Urgent Disaster Movie Satire

Digger is unlike any film coming from a major Hollywood studio in years, at least in my memory. It makes sense it comes from Warner Bros, which is the one major that seems to take real swings with big budgets, directors and stars in films you might say are risky business. Some work, some don’t: It paid off last year big time with Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which swept through awards season and the Oscars. But Digger, with a character-driven, head-spinning performance for the ages by the world’s biggest movie star Tom Cruise and an urgent message-laden satire about the world we are f*cking up from multiple Oscar-winning but undeniably auteurist filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu, takes things much further and thus could be one of the more divisive movies for the masses in a very long time.

There is no doubt it will, and should spark conversation and, love it or hate it, it should not be ignored. For me it is like a return to the kind of adventurous films in cinema’s groundbreaking era of the 1970s, but it isn’t easily defined. Its rat-a-tat-tat dialogue could come out of a ’40s screwball comedy like Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday, or even Billy Wilder’s 1961 One Two Three. In other ways it reminds me of the outrageous satire of Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick would have loved this movie) and even Adam McKay’s more recent Don’t Look Up, the latter featuring the same kind of desperate warnings about the destruction of our planet that Digger dwells on. You can even throw in Iñárritu’s Oscar-winning Birdman which with its theatrical setting has more in common with this one than you might gather from the trailers which, for a change, don’t give you the complete picture of what you are in for with Digger. Neither will I — to a point.

The studio is urging critics not to give away some of the twists, there is a huge one about half an hour in, so audiences can experience it with fresh eyes. However it is no spoiler alert to say it is tough to talk about this film without spilling the beans because though this movie is a comedic satire, it is also one about an impending disaster for mankind, one brought about the toll taken on our environment by greedy tech billionaires and oil barons with no goal other than building their own wealth at the expense of everyone and everything else. So this is the stuff of comedy? The aforementioned twist which may well throw audiences off, or even out, demands patience because it ultimately pays rich dividends in explaining how this tragic event could seemingly be played for laughs. Here is a clue: it all has to do with time.

Dr. Strangelove dealt in real time about the world blowing itself up in a nuclear war as it ends with Slim Pickens riding the bomb like a cowboy on a horse on its way to total annihilation. Don’t Look Up similarly takes a ticking clock real time approach to the planet’s complete obliteration by a meteor and a lament that it was just too late to do anything for humanity. Those were both comedies about seizmic events. Digger does it differently, a satire of disaster movies that says the real disaster is ourselves. The payoff, the revelation comes as the end credits roll. I won’t give it away or the complicated, sometimes frustrating (for some no doubt) journey Iñárritu and his co-writers take to get us there, but trust them. I walked away ultimately very moved but still more hopeful than in Strangelove and Don’t Look Up. Yes, it is a comedy, but the laughs mask a strong message that should be taken very seriously.

Cruise, virtually unrecognizable under prosthetic make up by Oscar winner Kazu Hiro, plays Digger Rockwell, an oil barron and obscenely rich guy who also has the ear of the U.S. President (John Goodman). We meet him in his mansion with his beloved , but near dead, cat Maggie as he goes about his daily rituals doing everything a guy that rich can do to keep his faithful companion of 30(!) years breathing (the anamatronic cat is the genius scene-stealing work of a team of puppeteers). If he has no concerns about what his drilling is doing to the earth, he does still manage to show he is human by his love for this poor creature.

Trouble though is on the horizon as an explosion on one of his oil rigs has freed a killer ice flow, setting loose Tsunamis, threatening hundreds of thousands of lives, and heading directly for Europe. What to do? “Let’s bomb the shit out them, Mr. President”, a overeager general suggests to stop it from spreading. A nightmarish product of ignored warnings of climate change and global warning, and an out of control disaster that was unleashed by Digger, now coming home to roost. He sets about to try and save the world from his own misdeeds (“Digger got us into this and now he is gonna dig ourselves out of it”, the President confidently proclaims) as the U.S. Government looks to contain the damage and not take the blame, even as they have basically been screwing over our European allies for years (sound familiar?) So this is the set up before we get to the twist and a parallel storyline that serves as a comment on the action we are watching. It is an observation on how we view reality, even when it appears to be surreality, or is it? Or was it?

Iñárritu had this idea nine years ago, in 2017 right about the time Trump got elected the first time and immediately pulled us out of the Paris Climate Agreement. It has gone through several iterations since then in a time where it has become increasingly difficult, even on a daily basis, to take a satirical look at the state of a real world and U.S. government that looks like pure satire itself. You can’t make up the real stuff coming out of D.C. so how do you keep up with dizzying ever-changing events and make this all seem relevant in a world where just a couple of weeks ago tech titans started casually mentioning man-made technology could end humanity before the decade is over? Just the new normal, right folks? That is the brilliance of this script written by Inarritu, his Birdman collaborators Alexander Dinelaris & Nicolás Giacobone, and Sabina Berman, with a story by Berman & Iñárritu and Jez Butterworth. It balances the seemingly absurd stuff of science fiction with what is becoming plausible as each day goes by and further rattles our heads. It pulls this all off by not showing the actual calamity, but something far more sobering believe it or not. In its own very different way it reminds me of Stanley Kramer’s 1959 warning of nuclear proliferation in On The Beach which ends in an empty town with a banner still waving in the wind saying ‘there is still time brother’. Between the laughs you are wondering if we are on a glide path to this becoming more fact than fiction. God knows there are already a lot of Diggers out there.

Cruise has never done a role like this one and the fact that he has spent the past several years filling theatres with the Mission: Impossibles and Top Guns, he reminds us he is also the actor who brought life to Born On The Fourth Of July, Jerry Maguire, Magnolia, Rain Man, The Color Of Money, The Last Samurai, Risky Business, Eyes Wide Shut, and so many more. His range is undeniable but here it is off the charts, especially in a stunning 10 minute monologue Digger delivers that admits guilt but seeks to place the blame collectively on all of us. There is also much more than the trailer tells you about this performance, but Cruise has surprises in store here doing something he has never before done in movies, and it is impressive indeed.

Surrounding him is an outstanding supporting cast, most notably Riz Ahmed as Ganesh as a scientist who tries to warn Digger and the President about what’s coming but fails. Goodman, who may be channeling a certain well-known President sails blissfully over the top in a rich comic turn. Sandra Huller, who seems to be in everything this year, is fine as Emma, Digger’s equally dangerous younger sister, and Michael Stuhbarg is his usual pro self as the Vice President ignored by POTUS but who isn’t as clueless as he appears. Jesse Plemons is superb as the mysterious Kenny becomes a key player in all this, and there is also exemplary work from Emma D’Arcy as Lina, Digger’s ever-faithful assistant, and Sophie Wilde who watches over the action with a keen eye.

The production values across the board are top notch, starting with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s camerawork employing the rich layers of Vista Vision; editors Conor O’Neill and Stephen Mirrone given a very tall task with the shifting moods; casting director Francine Maisler ; and especially production designers Dennis Gassner and Richard Johnson who pull off Herculean work for this film shot in its entirety at Pinewood Studios in England. Composer Cosmo Sheldrake’s score also makes the grade.

From Revenant and Birdman which brought him back-to-back Oscars, to memorable films like Biutiful, Babel , and Amores Perros among others, Iñárritu again proves he is one of the most original and fascinating filmmakers working today. Digger is the kind of movie we don’t see often on this scale, an ambitious satire that entertains, takes chances, sparks arguments, but is thrillingly alive as cinema designed to make us look at ourselves, hopefully wake up before it is too late, and ask the question: ‘what the hell are we doing? ‘

Producers are Iñárritu, Cruise, and Mary Parent.

Title: Digger
Distributor: Warner Bros
Release date: October 2, 2026
Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Screenwriters: Alejandro G Iñárritu & Alexander Dinelaris & Nicolás Giacobone, and Sabina Berman, story by Berman & Iñárritu and Jez Butterworth
Cast: Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons, Sophie Wilde, Emma D’Arcy
Rating: R
Running time: 2 hr 8 mins