Writer’s note: The second paragraph of this article (just below the first image) contains a basic outline of the film’s premise. There are no spoilers that weren’t already inferred in the film’s own trailer. However, if you want to completely avoid potential spoilers, skip over the second paragraph.
Alejandro González Iñárritu is one of only three filmmakers to win back-to-back Best Director Academy Awards, for Birdman (2014) and The Revenant (2015). Tom Cruise is one of the most bankable and recognisable actors in the world, with a filmography that has grossed over $13.3 billion worldwide, and that’s before you adjust for inflation. Needless to say, imagining these two titanic figures collaborating on a project is the stuff of cinematic dreams. Iñárritu fans have been waiting for his grand return to artistic filmmaking on a blockbuster scale, and Cruise fans have been excited for the movie star to put away the planes, spy masks and weapons, and make a return to his intense, tour de force acting. So, when the first trailers to Iñárritu and Cruise’s satirical dark comedy Digger (2026) dropped, moviegoers the world over waited with excitement and baited breath.
We are introduced to Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise), an ageing Oil Tycoon who lives in his gaudy mansion with no one except his few servants and his ailing cat. It’s business as usual for Digger, until he receives word that one of his drilling sites has caused massive icebergs (the size of countries) to break away from Greenland, and they are on a collision course with Europe and the United States. Digger, his head of environmental safety Dr. Nirav Ganesh (Riz Ahmed), US President Compson (John Goodman), and a War Room full of crusty old white men band together to come up with a solution. Should they try to divert blame to the Russians or Chinese? Should Digger address the United Nations in an effort to save his drilling business? Should they just launch nukes at the icebergs and hope for the best? The answer appears to be all of the above. However, as we progress through this comedy of errors, not all is as it appears.
When reading that plot description, I’m surely not the only one thinking of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964) at this very moment. As the film unfolds, you can tell that Iñárritu, Cruise and co definitely had Strangelove at top of mind. Especially given how Iñárritu has rooms of politicians, businessmen, and military men behaving like buffoons, or how Cruise’s performance recalls memories of George C. Scott’s General Buck Turgidson. While that earlier classic dark comedy was blessed with wit, energy, intelligence and a hilarious screenplay, Digger is marred by a lack of genuine laughs (minus a small handful of chuckles), obvious metaphors, excruciating boredom, painfully long monologues, and wildly inconsistent characters. Whereas most films that suffer from these issues are due to a lack of effort, Digger is drowning in effort.
Despite being a painful experience, it’s hard to deny that the project is fascinatingly well produced. The overly decorated sets are disgusting to look at, but they are also impressive in their scale, and curious in their design. The repetitive and overwritten script is frequently irritating, but it’s still filled with plenty of thought provoking gems, regardless of quality. The performances of Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Burn Gorman and Michael Stuhlbarg are frequently pathetic and laughable, but you can still detect richness, and purpose. This doesn’t happen very often, as most flawed productions aren’t filled with as much talent and drive as Digger. Even though Digger has an A-list team all putting in A-list effort, why are the results so lacking?
As it turns out, the many issues with Digger are all completely intentional. If you thought that the sets were a little too over-the-top, they’re supposed to be. If you thought that any given actor’s performance was too broad to be funny, that actor is most likely aware of that. If you thought that the political satire was too stupid to be insightful, Iñárritu and his writing team probably agree with you. The deeper we go into Digger’s story, you start to look back at all the questionable moments, bizarre choices and wrongheaded story turns, and realise why they were the way they were. As such, Digger will probably benefit greatly from a second watch, as you can pour over the little details that create this unique viewing experience. That being said, does self-awareness absolve Digger of its failings?
The answer to that question is complex, as Digger immediately becomes more interesting once these curious truths reveal themselves. However, Iñárritu doesn’t abandon the elements that made it a difficult watch, so it’s still not an easy story to invest in once the truth comes out. So, even after you’ve figured out why Digger is a mostly torturous experience, it continues to be torturous in-order to make its point. You start to wonder, was there a way for Iñárritu to deliver his message painlessly, functionally, or enjoyably? No matter how hard you try, the answer is no. Digger had to be poorly written, unfunny and over-acted in order to succeed in its ambitions. With that in mind, there will be just as many people calling this a ‘masterpiece’, as there will be calling it ‘a waste of time’.
So, if Digger is a satire, who or what is Iñárritu’s target of mockery? What on earth is he playing at, that he needs to essentially make a bad film in order to make a good film? To say exactly how and why this is the case would be giving the game away, but there is a way to describe what Digger means without describing spoilers. Essentially, Iñárritu, Cruise and the team behind Digger, have made an overly broad political satire, which is designed to satirise overly broad political satires. The entire project is pointing a huge middle finger at films like The Big Short (2015), Vice (2018) and Don’t Look Up (2021), and Iñárritu clearly has no intention of making friends or being awarded for his choice of target.
An experience such as Digger is truly one of a kind, and it’s a shame that its unique approach to storytelling will probably only work for a few years. There is a statute of limitations on this kind of rug pull in movies. Given all of the above, is Digger a successful satire? At this moment in time, it’s a respectable big swing which ultimately misses, but I completely expect Digger to age well, causing many critics (myself included) and audiences to look back and reevaluate it more positively.
6/10
Best way to watch it: At least twice. I’m sorry.
