Tom Cruise Buries His Own Charm in Iñárritu’s Bitter, Divisive Digger

Ted Redsull

October 6, 2026
6 min read

Tom Cruise Buries His Own Charm in Iñárritu’s Bitter, Divisive Digger

What do you get when you take one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, cover him in excessive makeup and put him up against one of modern cinema’s most polarising filmmakers? Well, it seems you get Digger. Shrouded in mystery since its first announcement, on its surface level Digger tells the story of Digger Rockwell, a wealthy oil tycoon whose relentless destruction of the natural world has caused a major disaster which he must now deal with. Tom Cruise stars as the titular character, performing in layers of aging makeup and a grating southern bravado in a role that seems to go against his usual grain. Digger is more than meets the eye, not just in how the film presents itself but also with what the film is saying. It tackles ideas of climate change, capitalism and personal corruption, all wrapped in a theatrical farce that will taste a lot like marmite.

tom cruise in digger — Digger Rockwell contemplates the view from his private jet, high above the disaster he caused.

Beginning with the performances, Digger features a wacky ensemble of heightened characters with Tom Cruise at the very centre. Cruise is viewed by many as one of the biggest Hollywood stars on the planet, cultivating a portfolio dominated by charming heartthrobs and action heroes. Digger Rockwell is none of the above, most similar to his role as Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder. This is a loud and mean performance, taking on an unlikability that is not usually the go to for a Tom Cruise character. This all being said, Cruise is exceptional in the role. He completely transforms into this character, adding layers to an already layered script and even having you double guess if it really is the charisma magnet we all know.

The makeup is incredible and Cruise uses it to his advantage to push away his persona and go big with Digger’s antics. These characters are large repulsive representations of the doom-causing elite we have today. John Goodman’s energy as President Compson is a driving force for the film’s shaky comedy, and the energy he embues into the role helps to heighten the jokes that do work. Riz Ahmed is also a highlight of the film, getting to be the middle man within all the chaos and show why he’s one of Britain’s best actors working today. A real highlight within the cast is the ever-talented Jesse Plemons, whose mysterious role is fascinating and sinister and best left for audiences to discover.

The film is also impressive to look at, seemingly taking inspiration from the cinematography of Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson and a showy production design of meticulously detailed sets. Frequent Iñárritu collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki creates a world that at times seems devoid of colour and at others overwhelmed with colour, matching the chaos of the narrative and weaving together the different perspectives that Digger takes place in. The score by Cosmo Sheldrake is much more jaunty than expected, incorporating the sounds of nature to really drive home the discussion on climate change. It seems Sheldrake has taken a couple notes out of the book of Jerskin Fendrix, the composer of the last couple Yorgos Lanthimos films and a pioneer in ushering in a new wave of experimental and whimsical sounds within American film scores.

MCDDIGG WB025 — Digger Rockwell, bloodied and rattled, as the disaster he unleashed closes in around him.

It seems the main talking point however will come down to director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s indulgence when it comes to this project and what Digger is really about. Digger has been marketed as a Tom Cruise led comedy, the initial tagline even reading “a comedy of catastrophic proportions”. The problem is, Digger isn’t very funny and I’m not even sure it is trying to be. Of course, there are jokes and many of them seem not to work, but the trick of this film is that part of the context is that they aren’t supposed to. That I believe is the film’s biggest fault, a lot of bad will will be generated from viewers hoping to get a Tom Cruise led comedy in the style of Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove but instead get a surreal drama about the individual impact we have on the challenges Earth is facing.

In the last couple decades we have got a collection of films distilling the idea that the individual is powerful, think of The Matrix’s Neo or even the Lord of the Rings franchise. Cinema about how a single person can change the tides for good, but it seems Digger is proposing the opposite. Digger’s protagonist spreads evil like a parasite, infecting all around him on a death march to a global self-destruction. This isn’t a feel good farce, this is a feel bad analysis on what’s going wrong in our modern world. Iñárritu offers an extremified look at the future dangers without giving any hopeful possibilities, and that might just be too bitter of a pill to swallow.

Some will hate Digger for its irritating characters and dower outlook, others will love it for its unashamed exploration of what’s going wrong, but it feels there is a staying power for this divisive film. Alejandro González Iñárritu bites off a lot and Tom Cruise does his best to chew on it to varying degrees of success. What will inform your experience of Digger is how you go into it. As a comedy it’s deeply flawed, as a political war cry it’s overbearing, but as a surreal meditation asking for individual experience, it seems it might work just as long as the viewer is okay to dig a little deeper.

Go in braced for a bruising, divisive two hours rather than the comedy the trailers promise, and EyeOnLondon suspects Digger will be argued over long after October.

For more London arts and culture, visit EyeOnLondon at eye-on-london.com.