If we’ve learned anything from Warner Bros. last year, it’s that certain risks can pay off big time. Nobody could’ve expected Sinners to be a massive win for Ryan Coogler and the horror genre, and while One Battle After Another didn’t break even at the box office, it definitely made up for it in terms of accolades. But who knows what it will be with Digger, where we get to see the one and only Tom Cruise in his first non-franchise role in years, working with two-time Oscar-winning director Alejandro G. Iñárritu. You can tell the marketing team intentionally kept it as secret as possible, which is why it didn’t premiere at any festivals before release. But considering Iñárritu tends to be very hit-or-miss in the film community, something like Digger was expected to be at least a bit polarizing. After sitting through those two hours on the Monday afternoon after its first weekend, I left questioning the decisions made throughout its satirical dark comedy, more frustrated than amazed. And I know I’m not the only person who feels this way, while trying hard to explain why.
What’s the Story: Digger Rockwell (Cruise) is an aging, eccentric oil tycoon whose company, Rockwell United, extracts oil all in Alaska and Greenland. Being a billionaire with all the money in the world should be stress-free, until a drill site in Greenland is consumed by methane, triggering an explosion that sends a huge ice shelf off and toward Europe. When this reaches U.S. President Compson (John Goodman) and his cabinet, who are facing catastrophic destruction, Digger must do what he can to shift the narrative and prove he’s humanity’s last hope for survival.
First and foremost, this is the Tom Cruise show, and it is one of those rare performances we don’t often see from Hollywood’s greatest action star. Whether the film works or not, he commits to the role and shows he still has range. Cruise gets the job done portraying Digger Rockwell as over-the-top and egotistical, with a ridiculous Southern accent under prosthetics courtesy of Kazu Hiro. It’s certainly a change of pace for him, not doing the jaw-dropping stunts we know he can pull off. But would I call this a top-ten best for him, let alone one that lands him his first acting nomination in over 25 years? Not really. What he’s asked to do throughout Digger is almost risky, but you see a character who isn’t easy to get along with on this journey he takes for himself, and you’re unsure whether we have to understand the humanity beneath him.
With any Iñárritu film, you’ll appreciate its visual style, which makes the world inside Digger feel distinct from anything he’s explored before. You can’t go wrong with Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography, shot in VistaVision, and the production design by Dennis Gassner and Richard Johnson is unbelievable; it feels almost out of the ordinary to capture it all in IMAX.
Near the end of the first act, something in the story immediately tells you whether you’ll be on board with what is revealed. When it went that direction, it not only left me baffled, but the rest of the experience made me feel disconnected from what happened afterward. The screenplay by Iñárritu, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., Nicolás Giacobone, and Sabina Berman failed to make this fun—especially when the stakes were off in the first half and the “twist” can only be described as self-indulgent, rather than coming across as the 21st century’s answer to Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. As a result, it has little impact, even when it has something to say about the importance of climate change and the reflection on our society.
I haven’t seen everything he’s done, but I’m still in the group that thought both Birdman and The Revenant were great and ignored his last project, Bardo, because I heard it was nothing. Iñárritu tends to take risks, which don’t always land with general audiences. But I don’t think it pays off here when it tries to be the satire it wants to be; it comes across as shallow or like it’s trying too hard to make the tone hit hard. As a dark comedy, I didn’t really laugh, except for a slight chuckle in the last half.
The initial premise, a billionaire like Digger trying to clean up his mess, sounded like an intriguing setup. However, when the rest of the film is just people yelling at each other in scenes that feel like they go on forever, a huge chunk of it gets pretty boring, and I wonder if I’ll ever get on board. The scene that stood out was Cruise’s impressive monologue at the European Parliament, which had the most momentum since he took over. Aside from Cruise and a standout performance from Riz Ahmed as Dr. Ganesh, Digger’s chief scientist, the movie wastes a genuinely talented ensemble cast. This is far from the best I’ve seen from John Goodman; the film wastes his comedic abilities, reducing him to yelling and looking like he’s dying, which makes sense considering he’s ill. The same goes for the always-excellent Sandra Hüller as Digger’s half-sister Emma, whose character couldn’t care less about what her brother does. Jesse Plemons does a fine job without spoiling his involvement, delivering a memorable monologue that really makes you think about our world. Unfortunately, it comes far too late to justify the delivery and the film’s ultimate message.
When a film like Digger leaves a different lasting impression on those who’ve seen it, it’s hard to fully understand why it’ll be considered a misfire now but an unexpected, misunderstood masterpiece later. This is one I don’t know if I want to rewatch in hopes of finding a deeper appreciation, because since I already know what to expect, I might just be through with it regardless. It seems to be the biggest “love-it-or-hate-it film of 2026, and its award chances are a total 50/50. But it’ll be remembered as a box-office bomb we probably should have seen coming. Who is this for? Who knows. If you’re a defender of Iñárritu and his work, it’ll be for you. But the year’s One Battle After Another; it is not. Believe me, this is the most conflicted I’ve felt about anything all year.
Digger earns points for its originality and for Tom Cruise not holding anything back in his nearly unrecognizable performance. As a whole, you’re looking at a messy Alejandro G. Iñárritu flick you can’t quite put your finger on, and it doesn’t always work. It’s one of those films that will create tons of conversations, but from my perspective, it lacked anything funny and became more self-indulgent as it went on. Will this be one that’ll change my tune if my brain tells me to give it another chance and the hope to understand what it has to say? Time will tell.
