Tom Cruise delivers a unique, thought-provoking performance in Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Digger, a sharp and wildly unpredictable black comedy about global warming, ruthless businessmen, and politics.
For over forty years, environmentalists have been warning the world that global warming is going to destroy the Earth, but they have largely been ignored. The big oil companies that have made a fortune drilling for the precious natural resource have been too powerful to make world leaders threaten them and, honestly, humanity, for the most part, has become too dependent on the creature comforts provided by the greasy, slick product to want to revert to a time before energy. However, what would we do if offshore oil drilling caused a catastrophe? Would the "all-powerful" oil magnates take responsibility or offer monetary compensation for the damage they caused? If you think that is what Tom Cruise's (Mission: Impossible franchise) latest feature film, Digger, is about, you would only be partially correct.
Digger Rockwell (Cruise) is the eccentric head of the Rockwell oil fortune, which has wells all over the world, including Greenland and Alaska. When he wakes up one morning next to his semi-necrotic cat, Maggie, he finds out that the five-foot crack in the drilling field in Greenland is suddenly 30 feet across. Granted, he was warned two weeks prior, but that is only if he had looked at the footage or read the emails that were sent to him. Minutes later, the oil well explodes, and a piece of the ice shelf breaks off, setting off a damaging tsunami headed towards Europe. Unfortunately for Digger, that is only the beginning of his problems.
If Cruise took this role hoping it would garner him an Oscar nomination, then he made a smart decision, as his performance as Digger is unique and thought-provoking in more ways than one. He infuses Digger with a madman-like quality who really has a brain under all the craziness. John Goodman (Roseanne) is equally as strong as President Compson, and I wouldn't be surprised if he were nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal), Sandra Hüller (Project Hail Mary), and Jesse Plemons (Bugonia) also do an excellent job, making the movie well-acted from start to finish.
Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu (The Revenant) manages to mesh all the chaos happening throughout the movie together and have it all still make sense. His approach to Digger reminds me of Wes Anderson (Fantastic Mr. Fox), making unusual scenes seem perfectly normal and inserting black frames abruptly between scenes instead of using fade-out/fade-in transitions. His team is also very good, from costumes and set design to editing and sound editing, the latter being some of the best I think I have ever heard.
The film was the brainchild of Iñárritu along with Sabina Berman (Aunt Alejandra), Jez Butterworth (Ford v Ferrari), Nicolás Giacobone (Birdman), and Alexander Dinelaris (Birdman), and the collaboration yields a wonderfully satirical black comedy that is a commentary about global warming, ruthless businessmen, and politics. The dialogue is sharp and witty, and the monologues are concise while still managing to make their point.
I will admit that when I first saw some footage of Digger at CinemaCon in April 2026, I didn't hold out much hope for it being any good, but I couldn't have been more incorrect. As subsequent trailers were released, I thought the film showed a little more promise than I originally anticipated, but nothing could have prepared me for the 129-minute entertaining ride I found myself on.
There is a reason Cruise is a box office draw of epic proportions. He rarely makes a bad film, especially in more recent years, and Digger is no exception. I will only say that if you think you know what you are in for based on the trailers you saw, you truly have no idea because Digger is more...so much more.
Grade: A-
