By: Joseph Poulos

Tom Cruise’ latest starring role in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “Digger” may prove to be one of the
most expensive mistakes of his career.

With first-week attendance and box office projections now firmly at hand, the film has become
noteworthy for having the lowest opening weekend of the megastar’s career. As it stands, the
film’s gargantuan budget of $180 million will most certainly not be earned back.

With only a global opening weekend of $20 million, the film is now likely to suffer from poor
audience ratings and word of mouth trends. Rotten Tomatoes currently holds the film at a
lukewarm 51%. Industry trackers now estimate that the film will likely lose Warner Brothers $200
million. When the $100 million advertising campaign and rollout is taken into consideration, this
will firmly place “Digger” in the legendary ranks of the biggest box office bombs of all time.

But is it a bad film? Followers of Cruise’ previous work know that both the “Mission Impossible”
and “Top Gun” franchises made untold billions for studio investors. Most serious film buffs likely
wouldn’t place those films in the same genre as any of “Digger” director Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s
previous films. Most of his work has been considered firmly in the “art” genre, such as 2014’s
“Birdman,” which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

It should be said: “Digger” is not that kind of film. It strives to be; It is firmly rooted in the
director’s typical oeuvre of black comedy. And with the massive budget it had, no audience
member in their right mind would say it wasn’t a spectacle.

It is perhaps then the message of the film that might strike some viewers as equal parts
heavy-handed and confounding. The framing device of the entire story rests on a play which is
being performed inside of the film. It is a meta movie in that regard.

Tom Cruise plays an actor named Curtis Markson. Markson then plays Digger Rockwell in the
aforementioned play. Rockwell is an American oil tycoon and titan of industry who is forced to
take responsibility for a technological disaster when an oil rig he operates drills too deep into a
polar ice cap, letting loose a floating ice projectile the size of Philadelphia. The main issue is
that the city-sized ice shelf will soon make landfall on the European continent. Digger is given 3
days to “control the narrative.”

The film follows Rockwell as he makes his way back to the old world to address the European
Union and ultimately the fallout that ensues when the ramifications of the epic disaster are made
clear on the world stage.

In the world of “Digger,” the disaster actually took place twenty years before. The play being
acted out on screen is a satire of that event. Since the whole film itself seeks to comment on
American industrialism, climate change and the state of strained international relations, it could
be said that the movie “Digger” is actually a comedy which satirizes an already tired satire.
If that made your head hurt, you can rest easy knowing it was entirely intentional on the part of
the director. Iñárritu’s goal is to throw so much crazy climate-denying shenanigans at the
audience members that their own perception of the human impact on our natural surroundings
is completely confounded. Those who have followed the climate debate over the last decade or
so will know that there are scientists on both sides of the discussion. The film’s point seems to
be that if science is indeed fact, then only one side can be right.

But Tom Cruise’ Digger Rockwell makes a different argument. He highlights hypocrisy at the
center of the debate. He notes that the people who attend the meetings of the Paris climate
accords likely travelled there in luxury jets and gas-powered black car services. Rockwell
reminds us that, without oil, we would effectively be back in the ice ages, freezing in the
wilderness and without a real way to cook enough food to feed the massive population of the
planet.

The question then becomes: is Cruise convincing enough to pull this off? The answer from this
reviewer is a resounding yes. Regardless of the argument being made, Cruise’ Rockwell is
impossible to look away from. He is vile, unapologetic and absolutely off his rocker. However, he
is one of the richest men in the world and Cruise taps into his concrete ego to pull it off.

One doesn’t get to the top of the heap of superstardom in the way that Cruise has without being
able to show confidence and mercurial charisma on a massive scale. In the course of the film,
Cruise shows us a portrayal which he never has before. He isn’t a renegade air force pilot trying
to fight evil. Digger Rockwell is as evil as evil can get. He is a man whose only appetite is for
money, and even then, he seems to have almost zero attachment or loyalty.

Rockwell delivers an immensely captivating and hilarious speech at the meeting of the
European Union, and Iñárritu sets the stage perfectly, complete with those European leaders in
attendance having their own wild fight in the background. Cruise appears overweight,
disheveled and utterly consumed by capitalism. His character states that this is the reality of the
world we live in and he is grateful to be the man that supplies the planet with the oil it so
obviously craves.

This is easily Cruise’ most committed and unique role since Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999
“Magnolia,” another film which was criticized for its ambition, but earned Cruise an Academy
Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Those who are fans of the films mentioned in the
beginning of this piece might be surprised to know that he was not nominated for his
performances in those films.

This is perhaps because Cruise has been typecast as an action hero to such a large degree that
it would be hyperbolic to praise the man for doing the job that he is literally the master of. It is
second nature to him. What does impress critics is when Cruise takes a different lane. This is
the biggest swing of his career.

Equal parts hilarious and revolting, Cruise’ performance as Digger Rockwell is notable because
it’s actually really good. This is a Cruise the likes of which we have never seen before and may
never see again. It’s experimental, raw and probably encroaching on something not unlike late
career greatness.

As for Iñárritu, what more can be said about the talent and artistic ambition of the famed
Mexican director? He gave DiCaprio the role which earned him his first Academy Award for Best
Actor in “The Revenant” back in 2015. This was only a year removed from reviving Michael
Keaton’s career in “Birdman.”

Iñárritu’s signature tropes are all there: grief-stricken characters, spiritual reckonings and
existential miasma. The play inside of the film is spectacular on a scale which may never again
be captured on screen. “Digger” is likely one of the most visually stunning films which will
premiere in all of 2026, so again, the budget mentioned in the beginning of this piece is not
wasted, at least from an artistic standpoint.

Where Iñárritu falls short is making a film that will then in turn make money. With the Warner
Brothers/Paramount $110 billion merger right around the corner, this is undoubtedly not what the
studio hired Iñárritu to do. Still, one must imagine that an auteur like Iñárritu is more focused on
making a beautiful, thought-provoking film which brings out a side of the lead actor the world
has never seen before. He accomplishes this in spades.

But the film buffs of the world are likely outnumbered by the action movie fans who want to see
Tom Cruise do what he always does. They want to see him scale the 2700-foot Burj Khalifa in
black spandex or fly his trusty P-51 Mustang into enemy territory, vulcan guns ablaze. That is
precisely what he is expected to do.

In “Digger,” Cruise has tapped into something more artistically valuable than the traditional
audience expectations of himself. He has pushed himself to the brinks of his known abilities and
proved that he is more than just a man whose previous films have made almost $14 billion. For
the first time in his career, Cruise appears to be on the cutting edge of dramatic performance. At
64, Cruise is proving to be one of the vanguard’s elite. He pushes the envelope so far in this film
that even if it does rank as one of the all-time worst financial disasters in move-making history, it
likely won’t be forgotten anytime soon. Dig on.

Rating: “Digger” 4 out of 5 stars