Tom Cruise delivers a fascinating performance as Digger Rockwell, an eccentric Texas oil tycoon who causes an environmental catastrophe in Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u2019s black satire \u201cDigger.\u201d It echoes shades of Stanley Kubrick\u2019s \u201cDr. Strangelove,\u201d and Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet\u2019s \u201cThe City of Lost Children,\u201d as Cold War paranoia is replaced by climate disaster, shifting the focus from political to corporate hubris. <\/p>\n
When you watch a film at Cinemark, the preshow features a \u201cDon\u2019t Miss The Big Moment\u201d commercial in which a confused moviegoer asks, \u201cWait, what?\u201d after returning to his seat from the concession stand. I felt like that guy for the first third of \u201cDigger.\u201d I\u00f1\u00e1rritu hits us with a fast-paced farce, then starts dropping hints that the film\u2019s artificial aesthetic has a reason.<\/p>\n
Shot in VistaVision, the visual style comes from Academy Award-winning cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who won two of three Oscars for his collaborations with I\u00f1\u00e1rritu on \u201cBirdman\u201d (2014) and \u201cThe Revenant\u201d (2015). Shot on 35mm, Lubezki uses desaturated colors to heighten the story\u2019s altered reality, which, when combined with the assortment of oddball characters and the surreal atmosphere, draws a comparison to Yorgos Lanthimos\u2019s \u201cPoor Things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hair and makeup designer Alessandro Bertolazzi and his crew spent six hours transforming Cruise into Digger with heavy facial prosthetics, false teeth, and a thinning hairpiece for a Nosferatu makeover\u2014the creep factor enhanced by a pet cat named Maggie who looks like she crawled out of Pet Sematary. Reportedly, Cruise used a stopwatch and a chalkboard to streamline the makeup application process, cutting it to under an hour.<\/p>\n
Cruise\u2019s portrayal of the Texas oil tycoon may seem like an over-the-top caricature, but after spending six decades in the Lone Star State and being raised by a father who worked in the oilfield, let\u2019s just say I\u2019ve met my fair share of Digger Rockwell types who frequently used the D-word to compare just about everything.<\/p>\n
Digger\u2019s company, Rockwell United, causes the film’s eco-disaster while drilling for oil in Greenland. Several warnings from the chief of environmental safety, Dr. Nirav Ganesh (a very good, barely recognizable Riz Ahmed), that an expanding crack in a glacier, combined with subterranean methane, is a catastrophe waiting to happen, are ignored by the money-hungry tycoon, backed by goofball President Compson (John Goodman). Neither is concerned about the environment.<\/p>\n
A massive methane explosion kills the entire Rockwell drilling crew and dislodges a colossal chunk of the glacier (nicknamed \u201cJudy\u201d), sending the ice shelf (the size of Maryland) hurling toward Norway. Tsunamis cause devastating floods across Northern Europe, resulting in a catastrophic loss of life and triggering a chain reaction that devastates the planet.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s up to Digger and an incompetent group of politicians and military personnel to save the planet. I\u2019ll bet you can guess how that turns out. Michael Stuhlbarg plays the clueless vice president, a puppet whose strings are pulled by delusional President Compson\u2014Goodman is even more outlandish than Cruise. Great character actor Robert John Burke brings Kubrick\u2019s \u201cStrangelove\u201d vibes as the stern Military Chief of Staff, Fitzgerald, who suggests using nukes to break up the giant sheet of ice. Once again, you can guess how that works out.<\/p>\n
We do get a few grounded characters, including Sandra H\u00fcller as Digger\u2019s business partner and half-sister, Emma, and Jesse Plemmons as Digger\u2019s nephew, Kenny. Both are underused, buried in the satire, though Plemmons\u2019s quiet intensity fits the eccentric storyline perfectly.<\/p>\n
Several twists unfold, including a major one at the conclusion. Once I put everything into perspective, I recognized the brilliance of I\u00f1\u00e1rritu\u2019s film, conceived 10 years ago after he completed \u201cThe Revenant.\u201d I imagine \u201cDigger\u201d will divide audiences\u2014not everyone will have the patience to wait for the reveals before passing judgment. Regardless, Tom Cruise reminds us he\u2019s still capable of delivering a first-rate performance that highlights his skills as an accomplished actor, without resorting to thrilling action and stunts. It\u2019s a brilliant performance. Can you dig it?<\/p>\n
(3 \u00bd stars)<\/p>\n
Now showing in theaters<\/p>\n
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/10\/03\/digger-review-alejandro-gonzalez-inarritus-bewildering-satire-features-a-fascinating-performance-by-tom-cruise\/”>article<\/a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fortworthreport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n
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