Digger (2026)
Directed by: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Premise: An actor (Tom Cruise) plays an infamous oil baron whose Arctic drilling operations caused a natural disaster.
What Works: In 2014 filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu had great success with the movie Birdman in which Michael Keaton was cast as an actor best known for playing a superhero but who was now striving for artistic respectability on the stage. Digger plays as a companion piece to Birdman. The film opens with an oil baron managing a global crisis when his Arctic drilling operations precipitate a natural disaster. The filmmakers then add another diagetic layer. The story of the oil baron is an experimental theater piece dramatizing events that have already happened. What begins as a satire in the mold of Dr. Strangelove and Don’t Look Up becomes something else. While lampooning the insanity that is driving us toward an ecological catastrophe, Digger is also about the way we will memorialize that disaster in the future. In total, the film is less about indicting economic and political elites and much more about accusing the audience, pointing out our own indifference and culpability in a system that is leading us toward disaster. This is spelled out in an exceptional speech in which Tom Cruise’s character addresses the European Parliament. The film critiques satirical storytelling which turns tragedy into a farce that absolves citizens and consumers of their responsibilities.
What Doesn’t: What Digger is attempting to do is edgy and interesting and relevant. The trouble is that the movie is not successful in doing it. The various parts of Digger don’t come together. All of the scenes within the play are turned up to eleven. The shrillness becomes monotonous. Everyone within the play is a cartoon character. That is part of the movie’s point and Digger does address this in a scene in which Cruise’s character as the actor brings the rehearsal to a halt to debate the merits of what they’re doing. But the film does not interrogate dramatization and satire in an interesting way. Digger includes a bunch of behind-the-scenes drama but this is disconnected from the content of the play or the larger ideas of the film. The production is supposed to be a stage show but everything looks like a movie set. The production design, the performances, and the way the camera captures it all is cinematic rather than theatrical.
Bottom Line: Digger is an admirable failure. The moviemakers are trying for something big and ambitious but they just don’t get there. The film is a cacophony of ideas screeched through a megaphone. It’s too distorted to mean anything.
Episode: #1124 (November 1, 2026)