Digger (2026)
The most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity's saviour before the disaster he's unleashed destroys everything.
Digger is one of the most bewildering films I have seen in years, and I honestly mean that as both a compliment and a criticism. Alejandro G. Iñárritu's latest collaboration with Tom Cruise is ambitious to a fault, constantly reaching for something bigger, stranger, and more provocative than the audience expects. Sometimes it lands spectacularly. Sometimes it crashes headfirst into its own excess. Either way, it is impossible to accuse it of playing things safe.
The film follows Digger Rockwell, an enormously wealthy oil magnate whose company triggers a global environmental catastrophe. What begins as a seemingly straightforward satire about corporate greed quickly reveals itself to be something far more unusual. Every time the audience thinks it has figured out the tone, the genre, or even the narrative direction, the film swerves somewhere else. It starts as a political satire, evolves into something resembling an existential farce, dips into psychological drama, wanders through environmental commentary, and eventually arrives somewhere that feels almost impossible to categorise.
That unpredictability becomes the defining feature of the experience. There is a twist early enough in the story that it doesn't feel fair to discuss in detail, but it fundamentally alters how audiences engage with everything that follows. Rather than clarifying the narrative, it opens up entirely new questions. The result is a film that constantly challenges its viewers to reassess what they are watching and, perhaps more importantly, how they are supposed to feel about it.
Tom Cruise appears to be having the time of his life. Digger is exactly the sort of character audiences love to hate. He possesses the unchecked confidence of somebody who has spent most of his life being told he is right. He is cartoonishly wealthy, surrounded by people whose livelihoods depend on reinforcing his worldview, and entirely convinced of his own importance. Yet Cruise never plays him as a simple villain. There is a layer of desperation underneath the bravado, a growing awareness that the story Digger tells about himself may not survive contact with reality. The performance constantly shifts between absurdity and sincerity, making it difficult to know whether we are supposed to be laughing at him, sympathising with him, or quietly recognising parts of ourselves in him.
That uncertainty extends to the film as a whole. Digger often feels like it is asking viewers how they respond to catastrophe. When confronted with a disaster of unimaginable scale, do we seek someone to blame? Do we laugh at the absurdity of the systems that failed? Do we search for redemption? Or do we look inward and acknowledge that responsibility is rarely as simple as assigning one convenient villain? The film never settles on a definitive answer, and it becomes considerably more interesting whenever it embraces those questions rather than trying to explain them.
Unfortunately, that is where some of the frustration begins to emerge. For a story filled with fascinating ideas, Digger occasionally struggles to trust its audience. The themes are strong enough to stand on their own, but there are moments where the script feels compelled to underline points that were already perfectly clear. The satire works best when it allows viewers to make the connection themselves. Whenever it stops to explain the joke, some of the impact evaporates.
Visually, however, the film is extraordinary. Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography is among the strongest aspects of the entire production. Shot on 35mm film using a VistaVision format, the images possess an incredible scale and texture that make even relatively simple scenes feel visually rich, and the framing is consistently inventive. Production design is equally impressive, particularly in the way it exposes the machinery behind each shot. There are numerous moments that feel like peeks behind the curtain, revealing the elaborate performance required.
The colour palette deserves particular mention. Much of the world feels intentionally drained and subdued, allowing key characters and visual motifs to dominate the frame whenever they appear. It creates a visual hierarchy that constantly guides the eye without drawing attention to itself. Combined with Lubezki's eye for composition, the result is a film that remains captivating even when the narrative threatens to lose focus.
The supporting cast contributes significantly to the film's success. Riz Ahmed brings urgency and intelligence to scenes that could easily have become exposition dumps, while Sandra Hüller adds an emotional grounding that helps keep the increasingly surreal narrative tethered to something recognisably human. Jesse Plemons' presence immediately signals that nothing about this story will unfold conventionally, and his performance reinforces that expectation throughout.
What makes Digger particularly difficult to evaluate is that it never settles into a comfortable rhythm. Most films reveal what they are trying to achieve relatively early. Digger keeps changing the question. It is funny, but not really a comedy. It is horrific, but not really a horror film. It is political, but not specifically about politics. It is theatrical, grotesque, satirical, and occasionally profound, all while refusing to commit fully to any single interpretation.
That refusal will absolutely polarise audiences. Some viewers will be fascinated by its willingness to take risks. Others will find it exhausting. I found myself moving back and forth between those reactions throughout the runtime. There were sequences I absolutely loved and others that felt almost insufferable. Yet even when it was frustrating me, I remained completely engaged.
That may ultimately be the film's greatest success. I cannot honestly say whether I enjoyed Digger as much as I admired it, but I have spent far more time thinking about it than many objectively better films. It is messy. It is overlong. It does not always connect its ideas cleanly. Yet it is also visually stunning, intellectually ambitious, and refreshingly willing to be weird in ways that most modern studio productions would never dare attempt.
Digger is not built for mainstream audiences seeking easy entertainment. It is designed for viewers willing to wrestle with contradiction, ambiguity, and a filmmaker pushing every idea as far as it can possibly go. Sometimes well beyond. Whether that ultimately makes it a masterpiece or a mess is something audiences will be debating long after the credits roll. I'm still not entirely sure myself.
Digger is in NZ cinemas from October 1. Find your nearest screening here.
Review written by Alex Moulton
